Lee Odden hit a nerve with his last post.
“The [seo] challenge comes from a combination of:
- The need to create new content that travels and that others are motivated to link to
- Convincing web site owners that they need to create and promote content on an ongoing basis outside of their brochureware corporate site or online product catalog
…. “Long term, promotion of content that attracts relevant links from those empowered to publish will win. The act of linking is performed, unsolicited, by individual publishers.”
One undercurrent effect here is that there is a shift in responsibility for the success of a site from the SEO (with his bag of tricks, magic levers and dials) to the site owner (producing relevant, domain specific content worthy of links.) It also may spell a major shift in the role of SEO to content producer for some companies, and not a lot of SEOs will be able to deliver on this.
I’ve seen, time and time again, that getting a company to assign (talented) resources to the production of content is very difficult. Either because of laziness or lack of long-term mindset, there is a rift that develops between the consulting SEO’s recommendations and the company’s willingness or ability.
So, the clients nod at the ‘you’ll need to produce quality content‘ task discussion, when time comes, nothing gets done. Either they will avoid the task altogether or they’ll assign “an intern” or someone that’s already doing 3 jobs to the work… and the output hardly counts as link worthy.
That rift causes huge levels of stress and can be interpreted as a lack of ability on the SEO’s part. Saying “but you’re producing crap content” hardly mends the issue. It will be the responsibility of the skilled SEO to not only identify and recommend the content production, but also in educating clients on the value of this activity.
Image: Mikel Ortega
I can relate to what you’re saying abut the rift Scott and I agree that many SEO consultants are not all that prepared to get into the content business.
Maybe that’s a good thing. SEO has always evolved and perhaps it’s time to move on from focusing on the loophole and tricks a focus on the “marketing” of web site marketing.
Client education and a proper feedback mechanism can turn the content SEO skeptics and slow movers around.
This hits a nerve with me, too. Crap content? Garbage in, garbage out? I tell clients that (1) professional, (2) optimized and (3) appealing content is absolutely necessary to the survival of a site. Some businesses I work with know this, too, and they are willing to pay for it and for followup SEO marketing.
They’re the ones who end up with the best sites, methinks. The best foundation under their sites.
As to the ones who don’t get it? I keep banging my head against that wall. Ever hopeful.
Cheering you on – Judith