The Dark Side of SEO

(March 3, 2010)

It seems that every time I talk to a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ‘expert’, I walk away frustrated. The common view seems to be that sites need to be drastically overhauled to squeeze every last drop of search engine friendliness out of them. Of course the design mockups showing the recommended changes are usually hideous, destroying most of the carefully crafted design and user experience in favour of conforming to ‘best practices’ supplied by Google and Microsoft. The irony being that these titans of search don’t even adhere to these ‘best practices’ themselves.

The problem is that if you let the SEO pendulum swing too far towards these best practices, everyone’s site would look identical. Great for search; lousy for branding and differentiation. So while your site has a better chance of improving its Google rank, your chances of turning off or losing touch with your users also increases. These websites would be barely human-readable and, ultimately, people matter far more than Google ever will.

In my experience, the best SEO you can do is to cover the following four things:

1. Relevant content. Tell a good story, offer a compelling experience and information, preferably something your competition doesn’t offer.
2. A well-coded site. Your site should adhere to web standards as much as possible, be properly structured and not contain a lot of unnecessary code.
3. Get people talking about you and interacting with you (links, mentions, blogs talking about you, etc.). Your website instantly becomes more valuable if a user reaches it because they’ve been referred by someone they trust. That’s the kind of customer you want, so work on gaining that trust. Look at social media options like Twitter and start conversations with other organizations and people you trust.
4. Don’t try to game the system. There are lots of ‘tricks’ to help you achieve (usually) short-term gains in search ranking. This is referred to as ‘black hat SEO’. Chances are, it will actually get you de-listed from the search engines you’re trying so hard to place well on. Search engine companies aren’t dumb and they have zero tolerance for these tactics. Just don’t do it.

Finally, remember that the appearance of your site is irrelevant to Google, but hyper-relevant to site visitors. The problem with being too focused on SEO is that it’s all about getting people to your site. What’s actually more relevant is getting the right people to your site, and then getting them to stay and to refer their friends. That has much more to do with the user experience you provide than with SEO.

Not that you should ignore it, but chasing search term placement becomes a game of diminishing returns fairly quickly.

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