Diminishing Value of SEO Shop?

[Kevin Heisler]

On the Search Engine Watch blog, I'm posting about Mike Grehan's ClickZ column on the "diminishing value of the SEO shop."

What do you think?

Is SEO as a service losing its value to clients?

Does SEO usually disappoint clients after 90 days?

Is Grehan on the money?

[AussieWebmaster]

The article is here

And makes some good points... it is getting harder with all the other things Gioogle crams into the results... but there are work arounds etc. and the SEO Shop might be one of the few places keeping tracking of it all.

[beu]

The sky is falling again, the sky is falling again!

Keyword meta tag optimizers/spammers are a dime a dozen but, those folks who know how to get maps listed, results for local, videos indexed, news posted, products fead, gadgets gotten, locations on Earth and plus boxes FREE on "the Google", are worth their weight in Gold.

[AussieWebmaster]

Exactly I would say the people just have to be better skilled... not that the service is not needed... needed more really.

[beu]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Exactly I would say the people just have to be better skilled... not that the service is not needed... needed more really.

Right, I think this is good for the industry the user and the engines.

[Marcia]

The problem in Mike Grehan's story about the client of the SEO shop is that the goals and expectations weren't fully laid out from the start. That was my take on it.

If doing testing with different marketing options, including SEO, to decide how and which to go ahead with for pursuing their goals was the original plan, and made clear, that's one thing. But unless that was specified by the client and discussed with the SEO shop (who apparently did a good job within the alloted time), then it was too fuzzy and not really fair to anyone, or in the client's own best interests long term. There certainly wasn't enough time or data to make a viable comparison, and no matter how fast a horse is running, if it stops short somewhere in the middle of the track it isn't getting to the finish line.

[jewboy]

In an upcoming yet-to-be published interview here on SEW, I interview a top blogger with a multi-million dollar blogging empire. As you will read in the interview, his leading source of traffic comes from Google organic. Does he have an SEO firm? He does not. His Blog CMS is up to date with all the latest SEO plugins, which takes care of indexing and dupe content issues, meta tags, URL structures, etc. He is cranking out controversial, link-worthy content on the hour, topped off with a healthy amount of user generated content as gravy. For him,
the SEO process is occurring naturally as a by product of doing everything right; bringing him tons of natural links, traffic, conversions - you name it. On to my point...

Mike G outlined in the referenced article makes reference to Google Universal search and how the top 10 links are not what they used to be. The embedding of news, video, and other verticals is making last year's SEO obsolete. It's more than just about the top 10 links. Thinking about visibility in ranking / positions in terms of spot 1-10 is dated. 2 PPC Ads combined with a Google Local map can push your #1 ranking below the fold. To most of you, this is not new stuff. We've heard this before, over and over again.

On to the point, for real this time. My superstar blogger interviewee mentioned something very interesting. He says that Google sometimes picks up his posts in Google News, and sometimes
they do not. Whenever a story hits Google News, his traffic spikes significantly. To him, getting on top and having a "properly optimized site" means getting indexed and picked up by Google News regularly. We know that Google news has certain tech requirements (such as 3 digits in the URL, etc). New times, new challenges, new skill sets. Grehan hit it right on the money.

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by beu

The sky is falling again, the sky is falling again!

LOL I just shared Mike's article with a few friends at work, and used that as a subject line and then came and read this thread.

Mike brings up some interesting points and I feel he is dead-on when it comes to technical SEO's that don't understand/consider marketing. In addition, there are plenty of marketers and so-called social media experts out there that don't pause to consider how a few technical/content tweaks could greatly enhance the spoils of their labor.

Maybe Universal search will drive SEOs to evolve, maybe not, but something has to happen. It seems like as a whole there are many SEO experts out there "getting by" by just doing part of the work...let me tell you it doesn't work for competitive terms in competitive fields. Frank and the others are right that it is up to us to get better.

Heed Mike's post as advice instead of insult, and you will likely be doing exactly what Mike intended for you to do.