However.. SEO industry bashing linkbait.. by someone who is has been doing SEO for 2 years.

“I’ve been in SEO just over 2 years now.

reminds me of prison.. you get thrown in.. you find the biggest baddest meanest inmate and you kill them. then you are respected.

OR KILLED IN THE SHOWERS.

It’s kind of like the girl.. who tells your boyfriend you cheated on him.. so boyfriend breaks up with you and never speaks to you again, but you never really cheated.. too late, damage done.

In this example.. you have people writing negative blogs on things they do not have extensive experience on. Our industry suffers, our reputation as professionals suffer, client budgets suffer, our budgets suffer.

Sometimes when we are new, we really don’t understand the consequences of our actions.. white hat SEOs are accountable.. normally working with Fortune 50 companies who are publicly traded and under intense scrutiny due to previous issues with SEOs who didn’t follow the rules, and maybe did a bit of grey, a pinch of black hat in the process.. to do the quick fix..

(overstock, jcpenney, BMW, etc..)

Instead white hat seos do searcher personas, keyword volume conversion funnel studies, buying cyucle research based on client demographics and needs, seasonal searching habits in relation to that client’s service or product offerings..

normally these budgets can be well over 6 figures.
(im being very serious, fyi..)
there are meetings, and confirmations, and goals, and 25 people involved working on just the organic seo.. not the ppc, not the online display campaign, not the microsite, not the twitter acct, not the facebook page..

JUST ORGANIC SEO.

25 people.. all doing validation for white hat procedures and measurement initiatives.. sometimes these campaigns run for 6 weeks.
yes.. 6 figures, 6 weeks.. and that’s just ONE project.. that client may have 3 or 4 going art a time.

(seasonal? hello?)

these campaigns are being tracked to the credit card used on the purchase of the item and traced all the way back to the keyword, which search engine and what placement within that search engine. Even if the search was done at work and the purchase was made on the weekend.. it’s still…

tracked.
documented.
measured against KPIs for the project
examined for ways to increase the traffic to that “item”, (whether it’s in google shopping display on the front page, Google local shopping display from mobile android search… yes.. even Bing conversion studies.. (i am doing them today)

either way… people shouldn’t write negative articles about industries they really do not have the experience in. it affects people’s paychecks.. people who don’t know any better, yet still are in the position of budget approval, read these…

“SEO is dead” (X25?)
oh.. how about editor of prestigious search publication pens article,
“SEO is a boondoggle”

“white hat seo is a joke”
(wait til you get sued by publicly traded company for jacking up their website in Google)

an article on mashable by some seo who was fired that same day..
(yes i called his boss and his client.. really tired of idiots bashing my career.)
he quoited – “i use google daily to give results that mislead searchers on behalf of clients”

Seth Godin thinking he can do SEO by brandjacking people.. then an SEO applicant coming in and when i asked what blogs they read they said “Seth Godin”.. (needless to say.. they didnt get hired) MISINFORMATION!~!! GAHH!!

This is my (our) career.. some people (clients with checkbooks) only read headlines.. some people think they can hide online and throw grenades and not get hit by shrapnel..

The SEOs of the world are getting tired of social media douchbags who don’t realize social is a concept not a total solution, we are getting tired of the Michael Arringtons of the world writing articles bashing our industry we lose sleep over to perfect.. and constantly must inform our clients and explain irresponsible articles written by inexperienced (ill-informed), people like;

(columbus SEO guy, they guy who tried to trademark seo that Rhea beat in court, seo champion, tech crunch and the kid who used to work some place close by who wrote a really stupid article on mashable who is no longer an employed seo, and of course digital thought leaders.. Seth Godin and Steve Rubel..)

Back to the above example.. 25 people almost lost a client because someone with checkbook writing credentials, read an article bashing seo… a meeting was called.. 27 hours were billed to client to present to them the points on why said article was invalid.. client renewed SEO engagement.. but wasted 27 hours in the process making an SEO billable more expensive (and more confusing), than it should be.

in the end.. these negative articles bashing our industry costs people jobs, money and reputation… So Lisa.. I applaud and thank you for writing another pie in the face against the wind article. seriously.. Thank you.

p.s. thanks for live blogging my black hat panel presentation from Pubcon “Due Diligence – White Hat SEO for Fortune 50 companies”

This is a great article Lisa. Going all the way down through it I agree with just about everything you said. Couple of points. There is a reason why I recommended adding this as A tool in the link building toolbox rather than THE tool. Building a brand around being an ass isn’t going to get you invited to any parties. (well actually.. it might.. some of those affiliate marketers are crazy)

Ross thanks for the words but I’m actually not new to blogging. I’m just new to using that domain to post anything on :-). I’ve actually been blogging on and off since 2004ish. Just haven’t had much time to do it as of late. Also a ton of the stuff I write online isn’t credited to me as its written for clients.

The krisroadruck.com run was a test. I’ll probably actually build it out at some point ( i might as well.. it ranks for my name ) but the test was only meant to serve 2 purposes. The first being entertainment. The second being to get a few people to think outside of the box. While negative linkbait may be familiar to a lot of bloggers I think all of us as experts in ANY field need to remember there are constantly newbies flowing into our career paths. Whats old news to us is often new-news to newbies. Thats why you can find many basic SEO concepts being blogged and reblogged over and over again.

I’ve been in SEO just over 2 years now. By the time I was coming in things like keyword density were well on their way out. But if I hadn’t found a RECENT post I probably would have chased that for several months before figuring it out on my own that it was pixie dust that stopped being effective a good while before I hit the scene.

Anyway again- Great post Lisa. :-)

There’s definitely a difference between people who “tell it like it is” and people who are just negative and angry. I have no problem with people who need to set the record straight, it’s when you start purposely attacking people for attention that it starts to lose that authenticity that Joe was talking about and just turns people off.

And working with negative, angry people isn’t really a fun experience for anyone. If you’re that guy all the time on your blog, don’t be too surprised when the clients aren’t lining up to work with you!

That said, if you really are that jerky of a person, maybe you shouldn’t be blogging. Give that to someone who actually does have people skills.