Comments on: A New Definition for SEO: SEO = RESULTS!

By: meeting rooms

meeting rooms — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:29:15 +0000

Agreed with a few comments here. SEO should be measure with popularity of your brand as well. If you have a product and no one talks about it but does well due to SEO – it will not last. If there is not an obvious ROI, then why bother doing it at all?:)

By: Best Man Speech

Best Man Speech — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:46:57 +0000

Good points. SEO has to be considered in on-page and off-page. Both of these elements factor into getting organic search results, which, as you mentioned, is THE GOAL of SEO.

By: Terry Van Horne

Terry Van Horne — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:04:43 +0000

Nick that’s the issue, the measurement! Jeff is spot on you have to measure results. Rankings aren’t a “suitable” result metric specifically because Googles’ personaliztion and Universal SERPs are impossible to use because the results can and often vary for every user. If the industry said “measurement” of SEO effectiveness is best based on a quantifiable (true sales metric) like performing a measurable action by the user then a lot of the problems are gone. The only real environment where visitors is a “conversion” is when the visitor has value ie: site is monetized by ads or the goal of the site is to generate new visitors.

IMO, the whole problem is that SEOs don’t base measurement of success on client goals. Clients are allowing the SEO to choose… often based on how their reporting is able to measure success. ie if the SEO is using WP they measure rankings.

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:47:14 +0000

Well the biggest problem in my eyes is that there are so many ideas and definitions on SEO and what it is. Everyone measures it different also. Some people want just rankings, some want visitors and some don’t know what they want.

By: Ilia - SEO

Ilia - SEO — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:57:56 +0000

Why not give it a dictionary definition of something along the lines of:”The process of improving your search engine rankings” and then SEO companies can call it whatever they want to call it 🙂

By: John Clark

John Clark — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:14:42 +0000

This is odd to me. The question comes to mind as in ranking top 5 for what? If your site is abcwidgets.com and people search for abcwidgets, you are going to be in the top 5. No problem. If you are a divorce lawyer and are expecting to be ranked in the top 5 for ‘divorce lawyer’ with 5 zillion other competing for that term there isn’t much of a chance.

I can always promise top 5. I can’t always promise top 5 for terms that people actually use and matter. Besides, search is also locally geared. A person in England won’t get the same results for ‘divorce lawyer’ as a person in Georgia. Google knows you are interested in a English court lawyer, not someone in Atlanta.

I can promise top 5 for ‘divorce lawyer bill smith atlanta’ no problem. Traffic from that? I can promise 0. The specifics on ‘top 5 for what’ are all important here.

By: Dieta

Dieta — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:21:30 +0000

When a company pays for SEO they expect that it’ll bring them more traffic and therefore new customers. The don’t care if the site gets optimised and everything is done the right way but the website STILL ranks low in search enignes. It’s obvious that they pay for results. My mother’s company for example pays only those months when her website is in the first 5 google results. If it’s 6 or 7 she doesn’t need to pay.

By: John Clark

John Clark — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:18:20 +0000

Nice trend of thought. I am constantly pulled by clients who can only believe that if all their products ranked page 1 on Google they’d be on easy street – and why can’t I get them there.

Never mind that their search term is only looked for 100 times a day and there are 3 million sites competing for that term – just get them there. But ask them to represent themselves in social media sites, blog and do what’s necessary for exposure and you get the ‘deer in the headlights’ response. Then they get another snake oil sales email promising them they can get it done single handedly – for $300 a month.

It can be frustrating – so thanks for a little more ammo to help them understand we can’t just meta tag them to success.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:52:43 +0000

Agree 100% with Ian above me. You can rank number 1 but if you don’t sell because of a garbage product…who cares?

Oh and btw OP, approving comments from people clearly trying to link build on a search blog and then taking the time to thank them for their comment really destroys any shred of credibility you have.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:56:21 +0000

Yes and no. I agree results are the main part, but you can do fully functional, proper SEO and not see ‘results’ if the product is junk and the desired result was sales. Just as you can advertise a junk product through TV and not sell anything.

Is it the fault of the ad agency who bought the commercial time that the product sucks and didn’t sell when they matched the target market and delivered visibility and attention?

You *can* put lipstick on a pig… it’s just stupid to do it. That doesn’t mean the same practice is not SEO any more if the product doesn’t sell.