Ok, instantly I know that I have you up in arms just a little, but just be patient, I have a point that I’ll eventually get to. According to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, and I quote
“According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the earliest known use of the phrase “search engine optimization” was a spam message posted on Usenet on July 26, 1997.”
And if that account is accurate, that is where the silliness began. We hem and haw and strategize about how to make search engines love us, you’ve seen the ads, “turn your site into a Google Magnet”, “Guaranteed 1st Page Listings” and all such nonsense. First, if any one or any company guarantees permanent first page placement for your organic search terms, beware. Remember, it’s only death and taxes are all we’ve been truly guaranteed.
But really what is the point of the Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing? Do we really care if Google loves us? Well actually, I think, no we don’t. However Google and other search engines are the primary means that drive traffic to many websites.
The point being is that we really want qualified traffic coming to our website, right? I remember being utterly amazed in 1998 when I was shopping for a new Honda, I put “honda prices” in the search engine and a BANNER AD appeared for guess what – HONDA. “Whoa! that’s way cool” That is a marketing strategy, right, and a paid one at that. Sure YAHOO made money for displaying the banner ad, but Honda did better by getting ultra qualified traffic to their website.
OOPS, traffic, here we go with another “buzzword”. Traffic is a fancy, over appreciated term, that means prospects, customers, competitors, researchers, employees, friends, neighbors, family, and don’t forget spiders and robots. What? Spiders and Robots? Sure, when you look at a traffic report, sometimes its a robot visitor or search engine spider that is driving your page views and visits up.
So back to the point at hand – why I think Search Engine Optimization is silly. Well, I think that the words Search Engine Optimization are silly because we are really optimizing our website to attract the most possible interested humans. But that’s not where the journey stops, that is only where the journey begins.
Time and time again as a professional web master in corporate land I fielded calls from agencies wanting to build me a website and guarantee my submissions to 1,000s of search engines. In fact they have had such an affect on companies, a prospect called me last week and wanted to know “are there some new search engines you can submit me to – we aren’t getting enough customers”. It’s a real disconnect. After looking at their site, it’s no wonder there’s not any business – and it’s not her fault – no one told her the secret ingredient: HUMANS … Everyone is thinking about pleasing the search engines — HELLO — we need to be pleasing the people.
It’s not enough to make the search engines come to us even though they are powerful, mighty, electronic creatures. Last time I checked search engines don’t have credit cards, and can’t fill in a lead generation form. (But we know that some robots can– even when the robots do, they are not there to buy). Search Engine Optimization is silly because it doesn’t drive sales, it only drives traffic. You can’t just get traffic (uh sorry) humans to your website and throw your hands up in the air, and say OOPS it didn’t work.
There are many on-site search engine optimization tactics that work and are effective. But none so effective as presenting content (a.k.a. product and service information) that is good for your qualified humans. You see, it is the human that type words in the search engines. Somehow there continues to be a disconnect about that. Search engines are not typing keywords into their own search box – they are machines — waiting to serve humans results.
I especially love it when “alogorithms” change and everyone thinks that Google is out to get them. I once believed that too, but then I was reminded that the search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Live, AOL, and all the others… have but one job: to maintain their brand. So what is their brand? Quality Results ! If you type in “3 ft pool cue” you expect to receive web pages about a 3 ft pool cue. If you search time and again and the search engine doesn’t give you relevant results, you are going to stop using that search engine. When you stop using that “free” search engine – the Search Engine Company loses sales. (I will expound on the subject of free services generating revenue on another cloudless day.) But it gets better as humans we blame the search engines when they don’t bring us what we want, when in fact, the search engines generally (yes there are some exceptions) bring us the best they have. It’s the best they have because companies are busy optimizing for the search engine, and not for the humans.
Humans don’t care if its a paid listing or an organic listing, they just want to find what they are looking for, and when search engines don’t deliver, the brand believability is reduced. To keep up with their customers Search Engines have to continue to revise their formula (aka algorithm) to deliver the best results to their customers.
A specific example is my 3 foot pool cue. Well, if you sell 3 foot pool cues, you are missing out on some web traffic. I don’t know how many folks type in 3 foot pool cue, or if it’s even a search term worth considering, but I can tell you, I got cruddy results (at the time of this writing). Click here to go search 3 foot pool cue for yourself . No one is thinking outside the box on this one. Even the paid results are lukewarm at best. Don’t think a 3 foot pool cue exists? YUP they do, for small spaces, or mini pool tables. And even though the industry standard is in inches – if I am a newbie to pool, I just may not know that. So help your customers. Make pages that speak to them. If you want them to visit your site, make the site worth visiting. Guide them down the primrose path to your door (uh website … and checkout pages).
So now we have searchers (humans) blaming the search engines, and of course website owners blame the search engines, but really isn’t it a matter of personal responsibility ? (oh boy is this getting political now? NOPE…don’t worry).
As if Google being out to get you isn’t enough … to add to the mayhem, every day there are new competitors coming online. So while your site may have been loved by the Search Engines yesterday, you have 3 new competitors today that are coming to get customers online for themselves. And you have to proactively manage that.
Search Engine Optimization is silly, but indeed necessary to attract qualified traffic. But search engine optimization is not a one time tactic, it has to be thought of as an ongoing marketing effort. If you still use the yellow pages to advertise your business, you can’t advertise in the book for one month and stop. On the web, you can’t do the same thing either. You should always be looking for ways to implement even the smallest progressive steps to increase the flow of qualified humans to your website. Pe
rhaps I should invent a new term and call it human search optimization? Ahhh that may be best left for another day.