First, please let me say “thank you” for all the comments many of you have made on my blog posts, and I appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts. As I get older, the more I value time
itself as it is a precious commodity that should never be wasted.
Biking over the Ravenel Bridge helps to inspire me 🙂
Working in the search engine optimization field has given me the opportunity to interview hundreds of businesses, in an effort to understand their weaknesses and strengths— and pitfalls and opportunities. If I am going to truly help them grow, I better have a comprehensive understanding of their business and where they fit into their market/industry. After doing this for several years, I have developed some strong opinions about SEO and make them known from time to time. However, please keep in mind these are just opinions from my vantage point. The purpose of my writings are not to appear as a braggart, but as someone who loves what he does and is very thankful for the opportunity to do so.
View of the Lowcountry Marsh from Highway 17 in Beaufort
Over time, we in the SEO field see things that continuously work, and these practices become ‘informal laws’ as to how to work in this business. For example, many optimizers reverse engineer the top 10 search results in order to figure out what is needed to gain sufficient ranking for a particular keyword phrase. On competitor websites, inbound links are counted, domain name strength is evaluated, pages are counted, etc… Many things are analyzed, but you get the point. Others may utilize robust search software combined with their personal inputs (I do this a lot) to uncover viable phrases which bring quality visitors to the client’s website.
If you are good at your craft, in most cases, you can do exercises that almost always yield positive results. And this is exactly how (and where) our opinions are formed. Some may be archers, others may be foot soldiers– but they still get the job done on the SEO battlefield 😉
Since the search engines keep their ranking algorithms a deeply guarded secret, no firm or optimizer can ever truly claim to know the inner workings of, for example, Google. Matt Cutts, who is a senior engineer at Google, only lets us know certain information from time to time—sort of like controlled public relations. Anybody (else) claiming to know the formulas of the search engines is either lying or extremely foolish. Many of us have a pretty good understanding of the algorithm… even though it can change up to 400 times (mostly subtle instances) per year. So where does that leave us? At this point, you may be thinking that good optimizers are more like holistic doctors that use natural remedies rather than one that prescribes modern day medicine. I think we are a combination of both as a general understanding of business must blend with technical considerations in order to bring a visitor from the search results to the site– and ultimately make them a customer.
Once again, thank you for your time.
About the Author: Rhett DeMille, the owner of PalmettoSoft, is a leading search engine optimization consultant located in the Charlotte NC and Charleston SC areas.
