41–50 of 85 posts
I think HN is gradually, gradually warming to SEO. I remember way back when I was lurking here someone had a comment along the lines of they would be a hired assassin prior to doing SEO consulting. These days folks discuss SEO strategy here with some regularity, and it generally doesn't cause vitriolic reactions when it is perceived as non-manipulative. I think it is a matter of continuing to demonstrate very basic t…
Let me explain why I have learned to hate SEO over the years. I'm writing this from a throwaway HN account. I work for a 4-year old company, where I was one of the first 3 employees. We have a very popular website that gets over 400 million page views per month. We get lots of traffic from Google. When I started, our priority was making a great, simple user interface. But we were also very aware of SEO, and paid much…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But good SEO is mostly easy, common-sense techniques that don't change very often. Bad SEO (gaming the system) is the hard part, and I have to imagine it's mostly the part people are willing to pay a lot of money for.
But good SEO is mostly easy, common-sense techniques that don't change very often This is sort of like saying "good programming is mostly easy, common-sense techniques that don't change very often", and since programming is a solved problem, anybody willing to pay a lot of money for programmers is clearly getting something hinky done. Programming is not a solved problem. Neither is marketing. SEO exists at the inters…
I think HN is gradually, gradually warming to SEO. I remember way back when I was lurking here someone had a comment along the lines of they would be a hired assassin prior to doing SEO consulting. These days folks discuss SEO strategy here with some regularity, and it generally doesn't cause vitriolic reactions when it is perceived as non-manipulative. I think it is a matter of continuing to demonstrate very basic t…
The points you make are disturbing. As far as I can tell, the reason why people shy away from SEO is not that it doesn't work. Indeed, it seems like people shy away from SEO because it works too well . At least for me, there's a perception that SEO is evil and crowds out legitimate content. I would hope that these startups are not going over to SEO just because it works; I would hope that SEO is trying to show that i…
SEO matters, even in the complex business to business sale, but only if your company and your offering is remarkable. (In the Seth Godin sense - worthy of remark.) Look at how much SEO a company like salesforce.com does.
Let me explain why I have learned to hate SEO over the years. I'm writing this from a throwaway HN account. I work for a 4-year old company, where I was one of the first 3 employees. We have a very popular website that gets over 400 million page views per month. We get lots of traffic from Google. When I started, our priority was making a great, simple user interface. But we were also very aware of SEO, and paid much…
Great user experience and highly effective SEO can co-exist, but it is much harder than most people think and it takes high quality individuals willing to work together, compromise, and execute on a vision that will benefit the corporate vision over all.
I’ve worked in the SEO business now for a very long time and I can also tell you that you are not the only one that feels the way you do and every single time I have seen this it has always come back to the quality of the individuals involved.
The other common problem in SEO is ineptitude. Many people call themselves SEOs when really they're just opportunistic freelancers and entrepreneurs. Their SEO knowledge is poor and their business management skills lacking. This ultimately impacts EVERYONE connected with the job, even those only remotely connected (like the good SEOs out there).
I think that most people here prefer "any other problem" to marketing.
As an engineer for a decade and a half (turned tech manager, now), I used to have that same feeling. I believe that's because until you work with a competent marketing group, there's an awful lot of "Dilbert marketing department" evident. And truly competent marketing groups are only slightly more plentiful than unicorns, IME. Work alongside a good marketing team however, and it's night and day. I think that they hav…
Good technology marketers generally are a) ex-engineers (this is a spay-shul breed of person), often those who went out in the field and sold when push came to shove or b) people that sincerely like technology and have lots of field experience.
A bad marketer says "Everything is a widget (or cpg.)" A good marketer says "Every buying process in every vertical is different and highly sensitive."
Generally, marketers arrive as communication-oriented (PR/Marcomm experience), technology-oriented (PMM/PM experience), or sales-oriented (former sales person, cares more about qualified leads than raw names and phone numbers.)
Read Steve Blank's book - most people point to him as one of the best marketers in Silicon Valley - or read about his adventures as head of the SuperMac marketing department - http://steveblank.com/category/supermac/ - That's what a GREAT marketer does.
But, yes, good tech marketers are rarer than hen's teeth. Most people in marketing are there because they lack the logical abilities to be an engineer and the courage to be a salesperson. (This is coming from a marketer.)
Generally, really good marketers know the hell out of their market, and know what metrics they're working towards. They should know every influencer in their field by name and viewpoint, if not personally. If anything, they really need to think of themselves as 'Market Response Engineers,' trying to find out what the market will do in response to the messages they communicate.
Additionally, avoid people who work/have worked at ad agencies. They know how to drink, not how to market things.
Let me explain why I have learned to hate SEO over the years. I'm writing this from a throwaway HN account. I work for a 4-year old company, where I was one of the first 3 employees. We have a very popular website that gets over 400 million page views per month. We get lots of traffic from Google. When I started, our priority was making a great, simple user interface. But we were also very aware of SEO, and paid much…
Did you try A-B testing to verify that the SEO tweaks actually did produce improvements? Seems to me that the absence of testing makes it difficult to verify the improvements that any specific SEO attempt might make. Unfortunately, there are too many SEO 'hand-wavers' trying to cash in on the widespread ignorance. From what I've seen genuine SEO results are a lot harder work than the SEO-oil salesmen would admit.
SEO makes it harder for people to find useful information on the web instead of what someone spent time and money to "optimize" for Google. Developers know this, and so generally dislike SEO.
My biggest gripe as a developer is having to deal with the perceptions of non-technical folks. I still frequently encounter folks who hope SEO can magically redeem their lousy-to-mediocre website. I always encourage them to first build content worth finding before going nuts worrying about how many people will find it.
Here is why I would never personally work for an SEO company: (Obviously just my opinion, with all the bias that carries) Search engines are very interesting, technologically. Optimizing a search engine would be extremely interesting. Optimizing websites to keep up with the changes of somebody else's business (the search engine) is not interesting. You're playing catch-up. You essentially attempting to reverse engine…
Fair points. We're working to figure out what works and provide software to message that and help businesses optimize. It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, etc), but the point is a reasonable one; optimizing against existing systems vs. creating something new may be part of the issue. Thanks for sharing, Brian.
... and how to get a popular item on news.yc :) I guess it just goes to prove your point that you can can promote your brand without being spamy.