Everybody Hates Lawyers…and SEOs
Everybody hates Me and I don’t care
Yeah, I am an SEO and much of the Internet hates me. Of course most of the people who rail against SEO’s have a very misguided idea about what an SEO actually is but part of the beauty of the Internet is that you don’t have to know what the hell you are talking about to be considered an expert. To many of the “thought leaders” at the big social sites SEO=SPAM. To some SEO’s this is troublesome because they are concerned about their “reputation”. It does not really bother me that some power users at Digg or Stumble Upon have a misguided hatred of anything SEO. I know I provide a valuable service to the clients who utilize my service and expertise.
Embrace the Outlaw Reputation
When I started in SEO it was a field that was relatively unknown. At that time Internet marketing consisted of banner ads and email spam to the average user. I will admit my knowledge of SEO was very raw back then and what we were doing was patently black hat. I had no idea that it was but it was. Over time I learned a lot more and quickly gravitated towards the whiter shade but I still hold some of the outlaw ideals that were ingrained in me back then. Today many power users still consider SEO to be the realm of spammers and black hats. While they still exist and tend to be more noticeable (everyone loves controversy) most SEO’s have a desire to help their clients succeed and help the search engines index and return useful information. After all, we have to use search engines too. Even though this is the reality many still consider SEO’s as manipulators of the Internet and will hate us regardless. I say embrace it and relish in the outlaw status. As long as SEO’s provide valuable service to their clients they will continue to have an important position in the world of online marketing.
Everybody hates lawyers…until they need one
How many lawyers do you hear complaining about their reputation? Not many. That is because they know that they can truly help people in need. Sure, there are plenty of lawyers out there who deserve the scorn and ridicule they get but for the most part they provide a valuable service to their clients when they are in a tough situation. SEO’s are hated by many Internet geeks but when a small business needs help competing against the big dogs many times it is an SEO that can help them do just that. Everyone hates SEO’s until they need one. So my challenge to all the SEO’s out there is to be more like lawyers. Embrace your reputation and continue to provide valuable services to those in need of your help.
Popularity: 100% [?]
I have to say as an SEO the two hardest types of clients are Lawyers, make sure if your signing a timed promotion / campaign with a lawyer that you have a clause stipulating if they need to review material how long they have before it starts to extended. They do care about their reputations, and they can be incredibility busy bad news for you if you have guarantees. The second are clients that hate you because they expected so much more out of SEO. I’ve seen clients pickup 10+ keyterms in the top 10 on Google within 2 weeks and still think they wasted too much money on a 12 month campaign! But without clients the bills just wouldn’t get paid.Cheers.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:10 amThe symptom is SEO Spam, which causes those who operate on the surface to spit venom. But what’s the cause? That is, why is there a need for black-hat tactics in the first place?
March 14th, 2008 at 11:20 amin business it’s always going to come down to money. so the real issue, in my mind, is that the current online marketing environment is too conducive to deceptive tactics.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:55 amThe Internet is already a sewer - keep polluting it
March 14th, 2008 at 3:14 pmJeff: Well, I will continue to add value for searchers and my clients. Those that want to pollute will continue to do so until it is no longer profitable. Maybe when that happens SEO will not be synonymous with SPAM but until then I will ignore those who think the two are the same thing or in any way similar.
Hi Mark, As a former corporate lawyer turned small business owner, let me state for the record that I don’t hate SEOs. On the contrary, I am very impressed with SEO pros. So much of the search workings are a mystery to me. I wish I had such knowledge.
I loved your point about being secure in the knowledge that you are providing a valuable service, rather than caring what others think.
Would Johnny Cochran have been Johnny Cochran if he’d spent precious mental energy worrying about what someone thought, rather than honing his skills and doing the best for his client?
No, he’d have been a mediocre lawyer.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:17 pmSEOs receive a lot of venom from other netizens who mistakenly believe SEO=SPAM. Too many of us take that to heart and get upset by it. We would be better off simply ignoring and being more like the Johnny Cochrans of the world. After all the real spammers ignore it. So too should the white hat SEOs.
This article rocks! And well said Anita and Mark. What keeps me interested (to be honest) is not so much the outlaw status of SEO, but the pure algorithmic challenge SEO presents.
With lawyers as clients, black hat really isn’t an option. Solid, white hat tactics that aim to inform and help visitors is the ONLY thing acceptable in that world. Is ecommerce SEO “more deceptive” than services-oriented SEO?
March 15th, 2008 at 12:40 pmI don’t know that e-commerce is any more deceptive in general. While many highly competitive keywords are in the e-commerce sector (leading to more black-hat activity) there are plenty of service oriented industries that attract their fair share of deception and schemes. Look at some of the things that have happened in real estate in the last year or so. The more competitive a market is the more likely that a few will step outside the rules.
many complain about police all the time also, until they are screaming for one.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pmWell, seriously when you think about it SEO is infact a joke really. All these people claiming to use methods that are different to everyone else is just a marketing ploy.
A lot of SEO’s guarantee to get you to number #1 in Google even though they can’t. Usually SEO’s think backlinks get you to number #1 in Google and sadly they’re mistaken because Google doesn’t just rely on backlinks for Pagerank anymore it goes on plenty of other factors as well.
Most SEO people are infact spam carriers. They’ll take your website and submit it too 1000’s of search engines most of which people don’t even visit. Anyone can add meta tags to their pages and more descriptive titles and better page content to their website.
The only people that cry out for SEO’s are people that couldn’t tell the difference between arabic and HTML. Everyone knows that SEO’s don’t do anything magical that someone who is familiar with HTML can’t already do.
SEO’s are infact taking advantage of people’s computer illiteratism, indeed. Comparing lawyers to SEO’s is a pretty silly comparison wouldn’t you think? An SEO doesn’t really offer anything remotely close to that of a lawyer because the Internet isn’t real life and lawyers are offering real life, serious services that people do need.
We can live without SEO and get through life just fine. If someone wants to visit your website they will.
- Dwayne Charrington.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pmhttp://www.dwaynecharrington.com
“Well, seriously when you think about it SEO is infact a joke really. All these people claiming to use methods that are different to everyone else is just a marketing ploy.”
—No, most real SEO’s don’t claim to use tricks. Real SEO’s may have different philosophies and use certain SEO tactics differently but the fundamentals are generally going to be the same. If someone says they have a secret technique they are not an SEO they are a Spammer.
“A lot of SEO’s guarantee to get you to number #1 in Google even though they can’t. Usually SEO’s think backlinks get you to number #1 in Google and sadly they’re mistaken because Google doesn’t just rely on backlinks for Pagerank anymore it goes on plenty of other factors as well.”
—No, a lot of Spammers and scammers guarantee a number one ranking. Real SEO’s know they have not control over the search engines so they don’t talk in terms of ranking guarantees. They talk about increasing relevant search referrals and conversions. And actually Google does rely on backlinks for Pagerank, that is all it is. Now if you are talking about SERP positions you are right. There are over 100 factors that are part of Google’s ranking algortihm with links being just one.
“Most SEO people are infact spam carriers. They’ll take your website and submit it too 1000’s of search engines most of which people don’t even visit. Anyone can add meta tags to their pages and more descriptive titles and better page content to their website.”
—-Again wrong. Not one legitimate SEO that I know or know of even submits sites to the major search engines anymore let alone thousands. All it takes is a link or two for the search engines to find a new site and that is what they want anyway. Lotsa scammers use this technique though but they are not SEOs. Oh, and most real SEOs know that meta tags are not really important for ranking well in the SERPs Titles are important and meta descriptions are helpful for CTR but don’t help in rankings.
“The only people that cry out for SEO’s are people that couldn’t tell the difference between arabic and HTML. Everyone knows that SEO’s don’t do anything magical that someone who is familiar with HTML can’t already do.”
—There are plenty of skilled coders out there who either don’t know, simply don’t care, or have misguided ideas about SEO. You are right, it’s not magic but it is much more than simply knowing a little bit especially in competitive industries. On top of that many designers who rely on flash and other rich media and that requires additional knowledge and expertise to help those sites do well in the SERPs.
“SEO’s are infact taking advantage of people’s computer illiteratism, indeed. Comparing lawyers to SEO’s is a pretty silly comparison wouldn’t you think? An SEO doesn’t really offer anything remotely close to that of a lawyer because the Internet isn’t real life and lawyers are offering real life, serious services that people do need.”
—Well, the comparison was that many people hate lawyers but they don’t care because they provide a valuable service for those in needs. SEOs tend to be too concerned with what others think instead of focusing on how they help businesses compete online. Sure, some lawyers do deal with much more serious issues but the vast majority do not. A very select few actually deal with the huge cases and life and death. And to an online business the Internet is real life as it is their only source of income so saying it is not real life is short sighted and simply untrue in many many cases.
“We can live without SEO and get through life just fine. If someone wants to visit your website they will.”
–Sure, you are right. If you are not running an online business you can get through life just fine without SEO. But if you are a business owner SEO can make a huge difference in whether you succeed or fail. You may be selling a product or service that people are looking for but can’t find your site they can’t visit it. If you are doing it just for fun you can live with the fact that someone may or may not find your site but if your income is reliant on your website you may want to make sure that your site is easily found by those searching for whatever it is you offer. And SEO can make sure that it is wasy to find.
Hey there, i wanted to invite you to join this panel I’m putting together to discuss Universal Search and its implications on SEO.
If you wanna be part of it, just sign-up in the comments on this page: http://www.bradleyspencer.com/archives/97 and I’ll get a hold of you in a week or two when we start the email panel.
Thanks, Brad
March 31st, 2008 at 5:38 pm