Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

On another thread, nhgnicole called into question the "honesty" of using search engine optimization (SEO) writing. At issue is the question of how honest is it to attempt to boost rankings through seemingly artificial means.

Is this type of manipulation just that---manipulation? Can we assign a moral judgment to using language in such a way?

Isn`t persuasive argument, rhetoric, and campaign advertising the same thing? What about negative advertising as we see during political elections---would it be fair to say that SEO writing falls into a similar category of "manipulative language?"

And how about "truth in advertising" laws: is SEO content advertising? Would we assign a "true/false" value to Web site content in general, so-called rich content, or other promotional copywriting?

Well, there`s actually a long history of the various problems in this.

One was the metadata loaders. This is why Google and Yahoo! no longer consider metadata to be any value. Basically, people would make a HUGE list of keywords that weren`t necessarily pertaining to the website, stick them in the meta tags, and use that to draw traffic. Obviously that was false advertising, if a search for "the white house" brought up a page selling electronics. So ... the big search engines changed their tune.

There were also pages that were just keyword loaded and didn`t really contain content, just keywords everywhere, and had google ads all over the place.

Now we have adsense/adwords internet marketing, which I`m really not sure how I feel about. I know everyone has to make a living, but what happens is that someone does a search, finds your site, goes there, doesn`t find what they are looking for, and then sees a google ad on the side that might be more what they are looking for. So they click, not realizing those clicks cost money. Yes, the ad buyer is getting exposure, BUT ... had the non-useful person`s page not come up first, someone might have found the ad buyer through the search alone, and the lead wouldn`t have cost the ad buyer. So you`re making money by having a higher page rank than the person who can actually offer the service in the first place.

And now you have the all-time low people, like the guy that got around $15-30K to create artificial digg ratings. I mean, in this case, you have a guy who took the client`s money and made false profiles to rate the client`s content on digg so it would come up higher in the rankings. This is just the WORST imo. So your page is moving up the ranks at digg not because you actually provided good value to your customers ... but because you shelled out a ton of money to rig the whole system Terrif!

Anyway ... I`m obviously a little opinionated on the subject.

What is OK on the subject, to me, is using keywords to decide what your users are looking for and then providing that. Say, for example, you have a content site with pet info (because I do). So I might go look up keywords that people are looking for ... say I find "choosing a dog food" to be a popular keyword, so I might write an article for that.
OR, I might find that people are searching for words that are not a way I would speak. So in the article, I might have "dog training" but people are actually looking for "training my dog". So then I might change the language to relfect that. I am not misleading anyone - they will still find what they are looking for - but I am making it easier for them to find.
OR, I might look at my content to see if it includes relative words to my business, so that people can find me.
Those are all good examples of postive uses of SEO.

I have always had the feeling that if you have great content with good writing, you will always slip into proper SEO. So long as you pay attention to things like keyword placement and stuff like that. As the search engine changes their alga rhythms, you would likely still be relative to a search. Am I that far off base?

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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

Well, that`s the catch.

So, say you have some totally great content that is totally relevant to what I`m searching for. In a perfect world, I enter my search, you pop up, and I find you. Perfect! In reality, some internet marketer is exploiting the system, getting an artificial rank that puts their page higher than yours, even though I`d like your page better.

So, this is the problem.

IMO, we should keep behaving as if we live in a perfect world, and Google will keep working on their technology to move towards the perfect world people and less the exploiters. But ... well the people trying to rig the system will always try to stay a step ahead of the game to make a quick buck.

What am I doing? Viral marketing. It`s so much better for the little guy than SEO and AdWords will ever be.

As long as what you write is a true description of the business or whatever the website purports to promote, what difference does it make that you spice it up with keywords designed to boost your standings in the search results? As long as you don`t do all the bad things Nikole mentioned, I say "write on"

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I think that`s another reason why link popularity is becoming more and more relevant. It`s getting harder for the cheaters to cheat.

It`s similar to catching speeders by using police radar guns (and the other devices). The production of the best gun comes out, then a few month later a new method of beating the system (radar detector) arrives on the market. It doesn`t matter that radar detector systems are illegal. Simply speeding is illegal and that didn`t stop the person from speeding. It`s not likely they will stop from buying a radar detector because it`s illegal either. Nevertheless, radar guns are still employeed. Most of the traffic is driving within, or just above, the speed limit.

I say, most the writers will write `legal` copy, or just on the edge of `legal.` So... like Steve says... Write On!


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

I think it`s a principle of human nature that someone will always try to scam a system, no matter what that system. It`s been true throughout history.

I think we can start with a supposition that a good product will generate word-of-mouth, and people will start converging on that product. It`s not always true, and there are countless examples of what "should have" been a success, yet sank beneath the waves with only a ripple.

So when we look at SEO writing, I think first it should be considered an "added value" or extra thing, AFTER everything else is in place---a good product, efficient site, good shopping cart, customer service, and so forth.

Secondly, it should never be the fundamental linchpin of the site`s existence. No single thing should create that kind of dependency.

Sugar is a fine addition to the world of food. Salt is another excellent addition. If we start to legislate the use of sugar and salt, demanding that people refrain because of the healthcare burden, that`s ridiculous. Yet it`s the direction our society is heading.

In theory, a democracy offers protection of a minority to prevent that minority being totally overrun and wiped out. People who take advantage of SEO loopholes, or those who over-indulge in salt and sugar are a minority. That`s an assumption, and hasn`t been formally studied and declared. But it`s a probably true assumption.

So do we elevate that minority to "priority" status, thereby wiping out the rights of the majority to use something, enjoy something, or work with something? I don`t think so. Instead, standard market practices begin to offer a balance.

Google is a business, not controlled by the government. They "choose" to offer a search engine, based on algorithms that work through site content. Setting aside the potential for success, they could simply terminate "web crawlers," and demand that any site wanting to be listed should submit a formal request and application. Would that succeed? No.

Rather, I think it`s the pathetic lack of critical analysis and the growing collapse of common sense in our "modern" society that`s the problem. It`s the "What`s in it for me!" mentality, and comes under another question, "just because you can do something, does that mean you should do it?"

SEO manipulation (like many other things) rests on an assumption that a "system" exists outside of any forces, and never reacts or responds to those outside forces. Therefore, people can do whatever they want, and no matter what their actions, they`ll never affect the underlying system...ever.

"The environment," "the planet," "the corporation," all have fallen into this kind of idiocy, named as a fact-of-nature system. Criminals routinely believe that "society" is a system that can`t be affected by their actions, regardless of how many actions take place. A "search engine" appears to these people the same way, as a fact of nature that was there before dinosaurs, and will remain there after the moon escapes its orbit.

All we need to counter that thinking is the basic knowledge that Google *chooses* to remain in business. So does Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, and every other search engine. At any time, the owners can just shut it down.

How come those who want to always scam the system can`t comprehend this simple fact? Nobody knows, but people like that have brought about the collapse and destruction of pretty much everything "good," or creative in history. It may take a long time, but it eventually happens....like the laws of entropy.

Exactly.

I find that a lot of these fly-by-night internet marketing operations don`t understand the greater impact they have in this little virtual society. They don`t see how millions of them can slowly start to turn a good system into bad. I think a lot of it has to do with a fundamental misunderstand (or lack of knowledge regarding) how search engines work, sometimes coupled with (but not always!) not caring about what their actions do to the rest of us as long as they are making money!

There are two sides to this coin, obviously.  Tricks are tricks and they don`t really last all that long before the `tricks` don`t work anymore.  However, writing search friendly content doesn`t mean writing content that has the search term every other word.  You will likely exceed the recommended keyword density and only be listed lower.

Use your terms as often as it makes sense, when it reinforces the topic.  Writing clearly and concisely, using what you learned in a college writing class, will provide you more benefits than just trying to keyword spam a page.

Really helpful methods include:
Topical entry sentence using the search term.
Topical summary sentence using the search term.
Title including the search term.
If you use images (in the content) provide an alt tag using the search term in a sentence describing the image.

I guess my real point here is that the morality is less of an issue than just doing what really works reliably.  What really works reliably is just providing good content in a structured format.

The content is only part of the picture when it comes to SEO but content is what converts and conversions are the real end all.

I think that`s the key point - as has been pointed out, it`s not terribly difficult to keep good optimization practices in mind when developing copy for your site. Good keyword research, and subsequent deployment in your page titles, headers, copy and alt tags is perfectly acceptable in my mind, as long as it passes the readability test. And if you`re putting together a page that emphasizes your keywords and pleases your human visitors (=converts), you`re providing a quality experience that does what it needs to in terms of alerting search engines to the relevant theme of your page/site.


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chuck fuller