As anyone who reads this blog or follows me on Twitter and Friendfeed will know I am not a big fan of people professing to be SEO (search engine optimization) gurus and Marketing experts. More than once I have berated these professions often equating them with things like pond scum.
While I haven’t done a complete turnabout concerning these opinions I have found that that sometime one can use too wide of a brush when dealing with subjects like this. I have reconsider some of my thoughts on this primarily because of comments by people like AJ Kohn here on this blog and conversations with him on Friendfeed.
That doesn’t mean though that I have totally been swayed over to that dark side.
As I have become more well known as a blogger who deals with technology and the Internet my email inbox has seen an increasing flood of what can only be called PR crap and SEO pitches. It never fails that just about every email I get from marketers and PR firms is for something that if these people had taken even a minute to scan the blog or my Friendfeed stream they would have seen what they are pimping has no interest to me. On top of that is even though they try to appear personal you can tell right from the subject line that you are nothing more than a faceless entry in their mailing list database.
Needless to say just about every pitch I get ends up in the trash and in some cases their email addresses are added to my email client’s junk mail filter. Increasingly though I have found that both my Twitter and my Friendfeed streams have apparently become magnets to everyone who has tacked on SEO Expert or Marketing Ninja to their profile.
Even though I have made it more than plain in both places what I think of this kind of thing the follow requests keep coming. Well here’s a hint to all of you wannabe experts – I never follow back and in some cases when the same person keeps trying they get blocked.
How can this change?
Well actually it’s pretty simple – get to know who the hell I am. Once you know that and you still feel I can be of help then reach out personally – not through some electronic mimeographed piece of market-speak crap email.
You want to know how you can be successful with bloggers?
It’s simple – quit trying to sell us something every time you turn around.
You know who a successful marketer is?
It’s the person who you can talk with on Twitter or Friendfeed or by email and feel like you are having an actual conversation – not the target of a sales pitch or that you are riding trapped with them on an elevator. Sure you could be talking about product or service but the moment you throw out a buzzword or two you have crossed the line from being an interesting person to talk with to being just another marketing dreck.
The same applies to all those SEO ninjas out there that are forever trying to convince you that only they know how to get you to number one on Google. Sorry but that sales pitch grew old the second time it was proved to be bullshit.
The one last thing to remember – trying to convince people that success in this social media world depends on great SEO and even better marketing is nothing more than showing that you have fallen for your own hype. The world of communication and conversation is changing but unfortunately these two professions seem to be stuck in a Mad Men’s world.
[picture courtesy of CenterNetworks]
I'm flattered to get a mention Steve and I couldn't agree with you more.
Too many SEO 'gurus', PR 'pros' and marketing 'ninjas' flood the market with garbage. More than once I've come in after one of these people have swindled money from a client. They make my job more difficult because I have to overcome the stigma they bring to the entire profession. That's the way it goes and I've gotten used to it.
I recently hired a SEO Manager at Caring.com and, during the hiring process was on the receiving end of these pitches. Most were dreadful and many peppered my inbox more than once. Mind you, I was looking for an employee and not a contractor or agency.
That bit about getting to know you really *does* matter.
If they'd read the job description they would have noted that I wasn't some SEO noob. Furthermore, the company name was in the job description. In about 3 minutes you could have gone to LinkedIn, figured out it was me and then Googled for more on me. Not one person went even that far.
In an age of such great information … most fail to take even rudimentary steps to tap into that information.
So continue to call out the scummy marketers and get-rankings-quick SEO charlatans! It only clears the way for those of us plugging along doing it the right way.
Again, thanks for the mention and kind words.
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I'm flattered to get a mention Steve and I couldn't agree with you more.
Too many SEO 'gurus', PR 'pros' and marketing 'ninjas' flood the market with garbage. More than once I've come in after one of these people have swindled money from a client. They make my job more difficult because I have to overcome the stigma they bring to the entire profession. That's the way it goes and I've gotten used to it.
I recently hired a SEO Manager at Caring.com and, during the hiring process was on the receiving end of these pitches. Most were dreadful and many peppered my inbox more than once. Mind you, I was looking for an employee and not a contractor or agency.
That bit about getting to know you really *does* matter.
If they'd read the job description they would have noted that I wasn't some SEO noob. Furthermore, the company name was in the job description. In about 3 minutes you could have gone to LinkedIn, figured out it was me and then Googled for more on me. Not one person went even that far.
In an age of such great information … most fail to take even rudimentary steps to tap into that information.
So continue to call out the scummy marketers and get-rankings-quick SEO charlatans! It only clears the way for those of us plugging along doing it the right way.
Again, thanks for the mention and kind words.
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I might be a cranky old fart AJ but I will also be first in line to admit if I have been heavy handed in an opinion or even been wrong. The conversations with you over this subject has as I said prompted me to temper my feelings somewhat. On the other hand it can also make me a lot hard on those that do screw it up for the good hard working people in your profession.
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I might be a cranky old fart AJ but I will also be first in line to admit if I have been heavy handed in an opinion or even been wrong. The conversations with you over this subject has as I said prompted me to temper my feelings somewhat. On the other hand it can also make me a lot harder on those that do screw it up for the good hard working people in your profession.
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[...] The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of SEO and Marketers – WinExtra [...]
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Interesting blog post here…I enjoyed reading it. I currently work for an SEO company – one that you may call an evil entity. I'll agree with you that many “PR” and “SEO” people are constantly spewing their sales pitches, and often times they aren't even good at it. My degree is in PR and I'm disturbed to see my inbox at work fill up with terrible PR and marketing pitches.
That being said, not all who do SEO are evil. You mention that you may have painted too broad a swath with your brush, and I agree. Prior to my position with my current company, I was completely naive to the concept of SEO (something I've spoken with my old professors about!). But I'm quickly becoming aware of the number of black hat practices out there.
The truth behind SEO is that no one company can really truly promise to put your company in the top spot on Google. They can work at it diligently. They can use the proper key words, create several blogs and build a great site with incredible link structure. But a guarantee just isn't possible. We do the best we can and use the tools and knowledge we've got.
I'm glad you found me on Twitter (@zacksimpson) because I've enjoyed reading your posts. Keep up the excellent work and I'll keep reading!
P.S. You'll notice I DIDN'T attempt to link to the company I work for, it's blog I manage, or any other promotional thing. Not all SEO-ers are evil!
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Interesting blog post here…I enjoyed reading it. I currently work for an SEO company – one that you may call an evil entity. I'll agree with you that many “PR” and “SEO” people are constantly spewing their sales pitches, and often times they aren't even good at it. My degree is in PR and I'm disturbed to see my inbox at work fill up with terrible PR and marketing pitches.
That being said, not all who do SEO are evil. You mention that you may have painted too broad a swath with your brush, and I agree. Prior to my position with my current company, I was completely naive to the concept of SEO (something I've spoken with my old professors about!). But I'm quickly becoming aware of the number of black hat practices out there.
The truth behind SEO is that no one company can really truly promise to put your company in the top spot on Google. They can work at it diligently. They can use the proper key words, create several blogs and build a great site with incredible link structure. But a guarantee just isn't possible. We do the best we can and use the tools and knowledge we've got.
I'm glad you found me on Twitter (@zacksimpson) because I've enjoyed reading your posts. Keep up the excellent work and I'll keep reading!
P.S. You'll notice I DIDN'T attempt to link to the company I work for, it's blog I manage, or any other promotional thing. Not all SEO-ers are evil!
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Think it's tough for you bloggers? Imagine what it must be like for legitimate SEO consultants who are just trying to offer top notch 'best practices' SEO to folks who need it! The legit guys like me have a helluva time trying to first-off convince people they need to have their sites optimized for search, then convince them that we can offer this service to them! The more snake oil salesmen that hang out their shingle in this industry, the harder it gets to actually operate a legitimate SEO service.
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Think it's tough for you bloggers? Imagine what it must be like for legitimate SEO consultants who are just trying to offer top notch 'best practices' SEO to folks who need it! The legit guys like me have a helluva time trying to first-off convince people they need to have their sites optimized for search, then convince them that we can offer this service to them! The more snake oil salesmen that hang out their shingle in this industry, the harder it gets to actually operate a legitimate SEO service.
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