What is SEO?

[greeneagle]

We do a great deal of research, and I just can't tell you how many "SEO Sites" we have visited lately that seem to purchase every SEO software they can buy, and sell any one of 5 to 10 minute reports for hundreds of dollars.

Let's just get the ugly truth out.

There is a lot more to true SEO/SEM than what your next door neighbor (competitor) gets from those same "canned" reports!

These kind of "shady" operations eventually give us all a bad name.

This is a dark post, but I don't like these games, and neither should anyone else.

If you think that SEO is a couple, 3 or $400 canned SEO software reports for a client then what? Surely you are not "kidding" anyone there!

That's just "dirty" money!

Strickly My Opinion!

I'd sure like to talk about just what we think SEO is, though.

If I am being too "altruistic" for you guys, in a difficult business:
I'd bet my left n__, your clients would take a different view.

Let's play.

Ken

[KeithO]

explain what you consider a "canned report".

[greeneagle]

KiethO,

I am not going to name the leading SEO softwares here, this is not a commercial break for any of them. We all know who they are in this business.

If anyone else chooses to do so, I won't object. That's not my objective or choice.

Ken

[KeithO]

you didn't answer the question. i just want to clarify your post. you consider a report printed out by a SEO program to be a canned report. correct?

[greeneagle]

KiethO:

you consider a report printed out by a SEO program to be a canned report. correct?

Absolutely!... You couldn't be any more "Dead on the Money" there!

There are many other considerations to take into account.

In every review I have made, they rank "shallow" at best!, compared to a manual review.

and to churn them for revenue is obscene in my way of thinking.

I hope that satisfies, I don't know how to answer your question any more succinctly.

Purely based on experience!

Ken

[greeneagle]

Let's get real here, it's an immature industry based on extreme fluidity!

What does that mean?

Every application is behind times, at best!

I haven't seen anything over there impressive yet, have you?

If anyone can show something really impressive there, let's take a hard look at "the mill".

No, I am not disagreeing that those mills offer the opportunity to generate income, but I am calling in to question "real value", especially when the same advice is handed competitor to competitor... You bet I am!

Ken

[KeithO]

KiethO:

you consider a report printed out by a SEO program to be a canned report. correct?

Absolutely!... You couldn't be any more "Dead on the Money" there!

There are many other considerations to take into account.

In every review I have made, they rank "shallow" at best!, compared to a manual review.

and to churn them for revenue is obscene in my way of thinking.

I hope that satisfies, I don't know how to answer your question any more succinctly.

Purely based on experience!

Ken

ok. now, I use the ranking tool in webceo because that is what clients care the most about. i have a custom word doc that i send to the clients that includes other things but its not just about the ranking reports to me. however this does fall into the pricerange you mentioned.

[greeneagle]

Can we define what SEO is here, or not?

We shouldn't all get "choked up" suddenly.

What's the deal, here?

I need to go back to Engineering if all SEO is these days, is running some cannned software and generating canned reports for clients.

Can anyone help save the face of SEO here?

I am going to ask again:

What is SEO?

Ken

[greeneagle]

KiethO,

This is a hard business, and there are some good tools. I am not discounting that at all, in fact there are several I want to pick up and market in an affiliate capacity, but I will not represent anything I don't find real value in.

I'd like to hear real time opinions from experienced sources. Let's see some value in ensuing discussions here,

I have an open slate, but lets look at value. I don't eat or serve my clients; "potted meat".

Many of us feel the same way, as I suspect you do.

Ken

[Duncan Pollock]

Ken: In some respects, there's a similar question that can be asked about real estate agents. What really makes a good one?
And the answer -- to my mind at least -- is personalized service.
In the real estate business, there's a whole host of what you call canned stuff. And a somewhat overwhelmingly majority of agents uses it -- as, it's possible to say, their websites do.
But find a good agent -- which, in my opinion, isn't all that easy to do -- and you'll get someone who has a built in empathy to what you really need and want, be it as a seller or as a buyer.
Oh sure, there are the catchphrases such as "getting you the most money for your house in the quickest possible time and with the least amount of (shall we call it?) aggravation." Or "we'll help you find your house by mailing you the new listings that hit the market every day until the right one turns up."
Tosh! What every seller and every buyer wants is someone who'll focus absolutely on what it's going to take to sell their house or what's going to be involved in finding them the "one right place" and, truth to tell, no two situations are exactly alike.
What's required is an agent who'll largely ignore the pat phrases and learned-by-rote responses. It's someone who'll bring a totally personalized approach to each individual's needs and wants -- and will then move heaven and earth to get them fulfilled.
So am I using this post merely to heap praise on the (relatively) small number of agents who do the job that the selling and buying public deserve but -- again in my view -- seldom receive?
No sir! Rather, I'm trying to share your concerns, Ken, about what SEO ought to do but also fails to do in a considerable volume of cases.
There isn't, as you imply -- or certainly ought not to be -- a standard "do this, followed by that, and then something else" approach that's going to do justice to a site that needs and deserves it. There has to be a highly individualized analysis of what presently exists and what precisely needs to be done to bring about improvements.
Sure, there are principles -- just as there are in real estate -- but I'll agree with you, Ken, that the good (may I use the term?) SEOite will take the same approach that a good agent does. In other words, what is it that YOU need and never mind what everyone else does, says, or thinks.
Yes? No?

Duncan