The vibes are off as the kids would say.
Or as Barry Schwartz would say…
The past couple of months (years maybe) have been so strange for SEO. Every week some crazy issue pops up that makes me even wonder if SEO is really dead. The SERPs are nuts right now and a new ranking scam is showing up every day.
I don’t want this to come off as a mean article, we have amazing people in our industry doing great things, you know if you are one of these people! Just need to document my thoughts with crazy ramblings and poor grammar.
Ultimately it’s just crazy depressing that our industry is getting such a bad reputation right now when there is so much awesome stuff going on out there. I just did a massive redirect mapping so quickly thanks to Mark Williams-Cook. I’ve been able to create Person Schema automatically because of Lidia Infante. There are amazing people out there creating insanely useful stuff, but our industry just seems to be dominated by scammers and spammers.
There have been some really depressing articles coming out that perfectly detail what’s going on.
- How Google is killing independent sites like ours
- The Demise of the VP of SEO Role
- IT’S GOOG ENOUGH!
It makes me think that the current ‘version of SEO’ has turned into an MLM scam. Now it’s not exactly like an MLM where someone at the top is making money (besides the SEO course scammers). But the essence is that people are selling junk products that may work on the surface, but ultimately aren’t worth much in the long run (rankings but no sales/leads).
I’ve worked with lots of smaller companies that despised SEO but did it because they thought they had to. These thoughts likely came from shady sales + crappy service. They were probably told they needed to write 1 article/week or else Google wouldn’t rank them. Doesn’t matter what the topic is, CONTENT IS KING!
I’m sure this strategy didn’t work, they fired the agency or consultant and tried another. Likely repeated that process a few times with no one asking what are your overall goals. What channels should we focus on to accomplish those goals? We can start with SEO, introduce some PPC, maybe get some email outreach going and properly track your user’s journey to a lead/sale.
Nah bro, just write content, buy links and watch the rankings grow. Who cares about anything else, that’s SEO baby!
So what the heck is going on???
Rankings, Content, Links
We have a few different scams going on.
- Shady companies not doing right by their clients, but cashing those checks.
- SEO’s hacking the SERPs with junk results.
- Publishers selling/renting domains/links/articles.
- Product Review Sites.
- Some literally name their junk scams ‘Parasite’.
There’s probably some more, but it’s so frustrating that this is what people think of when they hear SEO. I would bet that most business owners would say they have a negative opinion of SEO and see it as more of a necessary evil than an investment.
I keep seeing people argue about RANKINGS.
- How are your rankings not going up all the time? You just have to publish and buy links.
- Just rent rankings???
- Post on Reddit, Google loves them.
- Have you tried this thing called ChatGPT? Steal my step-by-step guide to creating 2,000 articles overnight 🙂
Marketers, specifically SEO’s are the worst, we ruin everything.
Anything that can give us a rankings edge will be beaten to death and we will flex our rankings so hard no matter how dumb the tactic was. Seeing what John Mueller & Google Search Liason have to respond to makes me cringe. ‘If mercury is in Gatorade, is it a ranking factor‘?
Buy links, rent links and all that. Did I miss this part in SEO school? It honestly makes me feel dumb sometimes when I see these SEO Influencers showing how much they grew some random affiliate site. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t care about rankings, I care about quality traffic that comes into the funnel and converts.
I apologize for this statement below! Based on feedback I realized I unfairly looped in spammers and scammers with real affiliate webmasters/marketers who truly have a passion for their work. I’m digging into their sites to better understand their side of things. I won’t delete what I said because I don’t like when people pretend mistakes don’t happen, but I truly do apologize if I offended anyone!
Do they really make that much money? If they’re that good why aren’t they working for the big dawgs with a fat salary, 401k, stock options and all that? Is there a future in this? Or will it eventually die off and they move on to another scam? I will give this crew props, they’re smart, much smarter than I am cause I have no idea how they make so much money. It’s on Google and the other platforms that incentivize this type of SEO. Until that incentive is gone, this sort of junk will continue.
A quick note on Product Reviews sites. My wife and I are shopping for a stroller for our first due July 4th! Why is New York Times & USA Today ranking at the top for ‘best strollers’? I know I can and should probably have a better query, but this is ridiculous.
E-E-A-T, Omni-Channel, Users
There are a handful of people who I know will see the first part of that heading and prepare for war. But it’s a real concept that anyone who cares about their product or service should take seriously. If you stand by what you do, highlight your Experience, Expertise, Authority & Trust signals and your customers will take note. Notice I didn’t say ranking factor anywhere with E-E-A-T, so calm down people.
One of my biggest issues with the SEO Community (which is actually amazing, but has some vocal buttheads) is that we don’t let people do things their way. Some SEO’s see someone doing something different than their way and find the need to correct them and sometimes toss in an insult.
Yes, I understand I’m doing that now, but the version of SEO I am criticizing is ruining our industry.
Focus on what your users need, create content based on your experience and get that in front of your users.
It’s not a complicated recipe
- Understand business goals and how digital can help.
- Clean up the technical aspects of the site (Tech SEO, Speed, Navigation, Tracking).
- Create a content plan that incorporates solutions related to the product/service (How-To, Guides, Comparisons, etc.).
- Focus on distributing that content wherever your customers are (Email, SEO, Paid, Social, etc.).
Lots of SEOs skip #1 and run right to #2 or #3 and just start churning out content or getting a 100 on Page Speed Insights. Rankings may go up but is it worth anything? I’ve been there early in my career. Created tons of content that ranked well, but it didn’t translate to any leads for my client. Guess what they didn’t care about rankings. Rankings are worthless if they don’t translate into business.
An example I cite all the time is a local HVAC company I inherited that had hundreds of articles and only a few service pages. They were sold only SEO. Some of their articles were recipes related to local cuisine. I’m guessing their previous company said this would help with local SEO. They ranked for recipes, but when I’m looking for a recipe, I’m not thinking oh these guys can fix my furnace too.
I’m so sick of working with companies that you can tell got scammed. The consultant or agency doesn’t send any reporting of analytics or work done. Maybe the occasional chart of rankings pointing up but no other context. But guess what, they always cash that check ASAP!
What’s Next? How Do We Differentiate?
Legacy SEO is dying.
People fight about it all the time, but guess what it’s really happening. The algorithm is a mess, the SERPs are junk so we have to adapt and differentiate. And some of the best in the industry already have.
Product Marketing Management (PMM) & Search Experience Optimization (SXO) are the future.
To me, this is the same as omnichannel marketing. PMM sits in between everything, Marketing, Sales, Content, Product, Analytics, etc. You should be able to get all the knowledge you need on how to solve your user’s problems. Talk to the Sales team about what problems customers are facing. Work with the Product & Content team to ensure those problems are solved with digital content. Partner with Analytics to see if it’s working. If not, start the process over! If it is, keep that strategy moving and improve as you can.
Search Experience Optimization seems to be what our new title should be. Gone are the days of flexing rankings and no-context search console charts. Now we focus on User Feedback, Conversion Rates, Engagement Metrics. The overall success of the business and how it’s attributed to the overall search experience.
Google doesn’t owe us anything! So don’t depend on them.
I like to think I write some pretty good stuff, my site is a mess, but the content is helpful. According to SEMrush, I should only get 21 organic sessions/month (guess I stink at SEO). But Google Analytics is showing that I’ve had 3,500 sessions in the first 2 months of the year, 1,600 from organic traffic but the other half comes from Social and referral.
I solve my user’s problems, not the search engines and it shows. This is our future!
How Do I Plan For The Future?
Whether you are a business or a specialist you need to know who to trust when researching about Digital Marketing. As I have mentioned before, when there is a scam to be had, a marketer will abuse it. You need to know how to avoid these for a sustainable future.
- LearningSEO.io – Anything Aleyda posts can be trusted, and she is the source for promoting so many other greats in the industry that you can trust.
- Digital Marketing Consultant vs. Digital Marketing Agency – This is one of my articles, but I think it is super helpful for any business who is looking for help. Know what to ask and look out for to avoid any scams. If you are looking to DIY SEO & Digital marketing I have articles for those as well.
- Follow people on Digital E-A-T’s – Digital Marketers You Can Trust!
Question everything!
If something seems off, trust your gut. You need to do research in this industry, no matter how much scammers will tell you there are quick wins, there aren’t. Find trusted sources to help solve your questions.
There are great people in this industry and I know the future is strong for us. What we call ourselves, I have no idea, but we’re gonna keep on keeping on!
