[MLUG - DISCUSSION] blurb: SEO tips

[Michael]

>"Conclussion" should be "conclusion."
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>
Fixed, along with a few other spelling errors.

>There is some good information in there.  Unfortunately, writing clear
>prose and interesting  content seems to be a lot harder than writing a
>check to a quack SEO firm.
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I worked for two SEO companies (the second of which I was a part owner).

The first was definately a quack firm and they really had no idea how 
search engines work. To this day they are using gimmicks to try to 
improve their clients ranking. The owner is a real ass and a moron as he 
decided to stop paying the couple of us that actually knew how search 
engines work. The only thing I can really say he taught me was that 
people don't realize how to optimize their websites. It always seemed so 
obvious to me that I never realized how many people were clueless.

The second was short lived due to our lack of start-up funds but at 
least we knew what we were doing. A couple of us that worked for the 
other company tried to make a run of our own company when the quacks 
stopped paying us. We were pretty good and we had some decent software 
(I wrote) to help monitor and maintain placement.

Customers seem more willing to believe that there is some high-tech 
solution to the problem (using special software) than believing that 
simple techniques really make the difference. They like gimmicks and 
that is no doubt why so many companies use them. They'd rather pay 
$10,000 to use your worthless SEO placement software than pay $5,000 to 
have you spend 200 hours reviewing their website, working with their 
webmaster to make the needed changes, researching keywords, rewriting 
content, etc. People are just weird that way. They don't like simple 
solutions. Of course SEO is simple but there is a lot that experience 
can benefit. Knowing how to balance content and links can make you more 
effective than an unexperienced developer. Knowing the right contacts 
for making good links can help a lot too. :)

--
Michael <mogmios at mlug.missouri.edu>
http://kavlon.org