There are a good number of topics that constantly come back to do the rounds in the SEO blogosphere. They are boring topics because they have been done to death and also debunked to death. I think that really they should be put in a box and sealed tightly shut, then burnt to a crisp using a blowtorch. After that the ashes should be buried in the ground and shot at. Do not dig these up again.
Here they are:
- LSI Latent semantic indexing
It’s useful yes, in computing. Not in SEO. Nuff said.
- Bounce rate and rankings
There is so much research available surrounding this that I fail to see how anyone can think that these two are related.
- Stemming
why would you stem words for seo? Unless you use a very particular stemmer you are going to create a ton of nonsense words
- Keyword density
There is nothing wrong with using it as a birds eye view of the text, the mistake is even beginning to consider %
- Spreadsheets (for KEI or tracking links or whatever)
Give me a useful application, an equation or a better way to do something. Spreadsheets are last resort for data management imho.
- SEO’s are “search engineers”
Unless your job involves building search engines, then you are not a “search engineer”.
- <H1>
Is it important? Isn’t it important? Test for yourself and decide. I think this one is well and truly done.
- SEO Guru
A “Guru” is a spiritual guide. In another sense it is a teacher with great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a particular area who uses it to guide others (not make money):
“The syllable “gu” means shadows, the syllable “ru” he who disperses them, because of the power to disperse darkness the guru is thus named.” (Advayataraka Upanishad 14—18, verse 5)
- Crappy Link building (spam)
Telling people how to spam forums and social media for links, buying links and so on is not helping the world be a better place.
“Really SEO has nothing to do with link building which is site promotion… to say linking is SEO is like saying Exxon is an automaker” (Terry Van Horne)
- PageRank
Unless PageRank has been self- calculated (not toolbar PageRank) or there is something very interesting in the toolbar PageRank worth mentioning: uninteresting.
This list could go on and on, but the main idea, coupled with Dave’s calling for “using your loaf” is more about cutting out the boring stuff that helps nobody. “SEO” is actually a pretty outdated term now, I would call most very good professionals “online business strategists”. They left the world of selling rankings and whatnot quite some time ago. Instead they focus their energy on building efficient and useful online businesses. The sites are usable, accessible, they look good, the products are sold thoughtfully, the sites are easily crawled by search engines and follow search engine guidelines…The result is a nice site that does well for its owner and its customers.
It’s so simple: do good in this world and it will pay off in so many ways. Do bad (spamming, content theft, buying links etc…) and you are not setting yourself up for a nice life.
haha great post. I’ve always wanted to do a similar blog post about topics I’m tired of hearing about. For example:
1. Duplicate Content
2. Link Scuplting / Nofollow Links
Great list but some of these topics will just never die.
Old business owners who were on the cutting edge of SEO in the late 90’s early 2000’s were concerned with some of these and still remain that way (sad but true).
There will also be someone who is new to SEO who will ask about, bring up topics because it is part of learning process in seeing where SEO has come from.
Also, I like the little “golden nugget” in your second to last paragraph – “SEO” is actually a pretty outdated term now, I would call most very good professionals “online business strategists”. I agree with you completely there, we are now developing complete strategies for businesses, they just happen to revolve around search because that is where people and positive ROI are.
CJ,
I would ad the eternal debate Science VS Art. That is annoying as hell. I wish it goes away.
nice 10 seo topics but i know how much it should be useful in seo campaign, anyone can get benefit from these information
I really think that all the time companies try to get the SERP go up they shoulf be focusing on creating better value to their customers and the PR, SERP and links will follow.
I hate to say it, but get used to hearing these again and again and again. That’s because there’s people like me who are brand new to SEO and hear a lot of conflicting information and need to understand how this strange, mysterious art works.
By the same token, and this is what probably really grates your nerves, there’s many people who have been doing this a while and still rely on concepts and techniques generally considered outdated. These are the people that don’t keep up with blogs, attend forums, or do any kind of research outside of 9-5 in order to improve their craft.
That said, here’s my contribution to your list: Optimize for people and not search engines. That means nothing to me, because there are many ways to advance the interests of an organization. As an SEO specialist, I am trained to leverage search engines. Not freeway billboards or telemarketing. And even as far as other Internet marketing strategies go, they are great to know but not necessarily SEO. Let’s not pussy-foot around here: Even though the end-goal is connecting with people, the means by which I will help you do that is through search engine rankings.