Media

In Defense of SEO

November 4, 2023 by Pamela Parker

I’m not a search engine optimization (SEO) professional, but I know a lot of them. I’ve been lucky enough to attend dozens of search-related conferences (from Search Engine Strategies back in the day to SMX more recently), and, in the course of this, I’ve met some very talented, well-spoken, down-to-earth good people.

If you’re wondering why SEO (the practice) and SEOs (the people) are in need of defense, you probably haven’t read the Verge article posted a few days ago. Or Danny Sullivan’s reaction. To be honest, I haven’t read either of them in full, but after a few paragraphs like those I’ve pasted below, I was moved to write. This hasn’t happened to me in a long time, so I thought I’d express some of that passion (and reason) here.

A few choice phrases from the piece in question:

The links that pop up when they go looking for answers online, they say, are “absolutely unusable”; “garbage”; and “a nightmare” because “a lot of the content doesn’t feel authentic.” Some blame Google itself, asserting that an all-powerful, all-seeing, trillion-dollar corporation with a 90 percent market share for online search is corrupting our access to the truth. But others blame the people I wanted to see in Florida, the ones who engage in the mysterious art of search engine optimization, or SEO.

Doing SEO is less straightforward than buying the advertising space labeled “Sponsored” above organic search results; it’s more like the Wizard of Oz projecting his voice to magnify his authority. The goal is to tell the algorithm whatever it needs to hear for a site to appear as high up as possible in search results, leveraging Google’s supposed objectivity to lure people in and then, usually, show them some kind of advertising.

Perhaps this is why nearly everyone hates SEO and the people who do it for a living: the practice seems to have successfully destroyed the illusion that the internet was ever about anything other than selling stuff.

Everyone hates SEO and the people who do it for a living?

I certainly don’t, and my viewpoint on these folks and their profession is much more well-informed than one could possibly gain by observing things from afar and then attending a single conference. Sure, there are bad actors, but to tar the whole profession would be like saying all lawyers are bad because some are unethical. (Bad example?)

Most people who do SEO are just looking to get their business, or their client’s business, visibility on the internet. They work with retailers or pediatric dentists or farm-to-table restaurants or mom-and-pop run car washes. They work with everyone. If you’re publishing on the internet and you’re not doing SEO, you’re doing something wrong. Because SEO is just following best practices — and the best practice of all is creating good, useful content that interests and benefits your target audience — to help Google discover (and therefore rank) your content high when people are looking for what you offer.

As you might imagine, those who publish on the internet are also no strangers to SEO. Since I’ve worked in internet publishing ever since it’s been a thing (I launched this site in 1995), I’ve gotten a behind-the-scenes look at what people do to improve their rankings and it’s not mumbo jumbo. Amanda Chicago Lewis, in the Verge article, compares SEO to doing a rain dance or ritual sacrifice. It’s not that. As many people told her for the piece, it’s a lot of hard work. It takes time and effort to develop great content, make sure your site is organized in a logical way and get pages to load as quickly as possible. Especially when you’ve got years of content online.

Is business always bad?

Here’s what it comes down to, though — your fundamental perspective on the nature of business. Why do I think this? Another line from the article:

And as much as I might hate the way the SEOs who don’t follow Google’s rules have altered my online experience, the reality is that most people running a company will break whatever rules they are able to get away with breaking.

To me, that’s crazy talk. Let me say that again.

…Most people running a company will break whatever rules they are able to get away with breaking.

Really? Just because someone’s trying to make a buck — or even lots of bucks — that doesn’t mean they are evil. If you believe it does, there’s really nothing I can say to change your mind. Call me a Pollyanna, but I’ve met lots of smart, honest, well-intended SEOs. Even the article admits that the days of easy money in the space are over, and the sleaziest of the lot have moved on to easier, more lucrative pursuits.

I also believe Google does a good job in an increasingly complex environment, though it will need to be continually working to deliver better results. No, it’s not perfect, and the challenges facing it are only growing in a generative AI-powered world, but I don’t think there’s anything nefarious going on. Others will disagree.

An Open Letter to FiveThirtyEight.com

November 5, 2020 by Pamela Parker

I am so grateful that I felt compelled to pen this email to the reporters at FiveThirtyEight.com, praising them for their work on the Live Blog that has been my mainstay these past few days. I thought they deserved public recognition (such as it is on this badly-neglected site), so I’m reprinting it here.

[Read more…]

Alexa as a part of the family: We got Skills

May 15, 2016 by Pamela Parker

Since we added the Amazon Echo to the household last year, it’s been fascinating to see how my children (now 7 and 10) have adapted to “her” presence. The youngest delighted in asking Alexa to tell him corny jokes and, more practically, used the device to time himself when doing his homework. The oldest learned quickly how one needed to ask her questions to yield useful answers. Digital natives, to be sure.

Since then, Alexa has become an integral part of our lives. I use her to entertain me and answer questions while my hands are occupied with cooking or washing dishes. She’s set to remind us of when we should be headed out the door every school day, and we’ve set up a Friday playlist on Spotify — which, of course, include two versions of Rebecca Black’s classic — to cheer us and get us moving on the last day of the work/school-week. I even replaced my bedside alarm clock with a Dot.

So when I started to investigate the idea of Alexa Skills, it was natural that I involved my kids — well, one kid in particular who happens to love trains.

On Apple: “Branding” Is More Than Just Marketing

February 26, 2016 by Pamela Parker

Apple iPhone 6

The Apple phone unlocking issue hit the Republican debate last night, with candidate Marco Rubio accusing the technology company of putting branding before patriotism.

“They think it hurts their brand,” Rubio said. “Well, let me tell you, their brand is not superior to the United States of America.”

It seems the presidential candidates have a mistaken idea of what a brand really is. Branding isn’t just marketing — advertising, email marketing, etc. Branding is about everything that your company and product are about.

You express your brand through all of your formal communications, yes. But the design of your store, the demeanor of the person at the call center, the expertise of the kid behind the counter — not to mention what your top executives say in unguarded moments — all combine to make up your brand. If there is dissonance between elements, people notice, and it affects your business.

So Apple standing up to the U.S. government isn’t about a trifling attempt to protect its “image.” It’s really about Apple doing what it, as a company, believes to be the right thing. The right thing for its business, yes. But also the right thing for the country and its people.

Others may disagree, but I hate the idea of people diminishing the importance of Apple’s stance by dismissing it as mere branding. If you want to put it in those terms, one might say that the U.S. is hurting its own brand by chipping away at the personal freedoms that it purports to be protecting.

Not Just Gingers And One-Offs: The Enrichening Of English Around The Globe

December 23, 2014 by Pamela Parker

This morning, I caught up on the news by reading about the recent terrible accident in Glasgow that took six lives. Most headlines I saw referred to it as the “Glasgow Bin Lorry Crash.” Here, we’d call it the “Garbage Truck Crash.” Sad as the incident was, It got me thinking about a less-tragic cultural phenomenon that I’ve been observing for some time.

When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have had any idea what a “Bin Lorry” was. I remember having to look up words like “treacle” after I’d come across them in books. And books were nearly the only places I ran across such words. I met an exchange student from Australia in high school and was fascinated by slang he taught me like saying “no worries” rather than “you’re welcome” or “not a problem.”

I also remember being confused about the term “mince” or “mince meat” — I thought I’d figured out that “mince” was what we termed “hamburger meat” or “ground beef,” but then I heard about a “mince pie” or a “mincemeat pie,” which sounded like dessert to me. And speaking of dessert, that Pink Floyd song that asked “how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” mystified me a bit, too. I thought I knew what pudding was, but this seemed an odd usage of it. [Read more…] about Not Just Gingers And One-Offs: The Enrichening Of English Around The Globe

Media

Everyone hates SEO and the people who do it for a living?

Is business always bad?

Footer