SEO, Google and reality...

Steve

I have been a member of Jill's forum for years (2004) and had on many occasions nearly taken one of her expensive courses.

But I can tell you Jill does not waiver and she has spend years telling everyone that it was simple just do this or that, and in the beginning it was the case, but it has evolved over the years, but she has not.

Also some people forget that to get a decent link is damn hard, unless of course you are friends with some of the people at google and are a key note speaker here there and everywhere, then yes you can say oh by the way can you swap links with etc.

Their forum has been on the slide for years because she will not listen - ironic that she is telling google to listen.

Hi guys, you're so right Steve, the world of SEO is NOT simple, NEVER easy, often disappointing and is FREQUENTLY expensive!
On-page SEO is mainly a case of keeping abreast of the trends, applying common and marketing sense to your copy, layout, h1, h2,h2,h3 headings, internal links, ALT tags, META tags, page titles and so on. Avoiding waffle and hype is vital and always bear in mind the purpose of search engines is to seek out, index and rate, correct, true and relevant content.
Where things get dodgy is when confronted by the myriad operations promising top 10 position on Google for your chosen keywords. What happens if you are client number eleven after that same keyword?
My experience of the supposedly leading SEO company in the UK (no names mentioned) is..... promises, promises, promises! Keep paying the cheque (

I've also been bitten by UK based SEO outfits, and mistakenly went for large professional looking expensive firms, but service, quality and whole experience was terrible.

For SEO advice or outsourced consultancy, I'd now only engage someone I know of by reputation on various business forums, where you can measure other peoples feedback and get a feel for the type of person they are.

Good SEO consultants are worth their weight in gold, but just like the directory market, with countless script generated ropey directories, the SEO industry also seems to suffer from an image problem.

Never come across Jill before, but interesting feedback from Tomsk, but I thought she did make some good points.

I agree with her article. I'm working on my first site, and I take pride in creating a nice attractive site that provides real information that people will use and enjoy. It seems like 99% of the sites on the web are some sort of spam, just looking to make a quick buck. I feel like I'd rather have 1 huge site than 10 small ones, and have a product that I'm proud of. And then the links, rankings, etc. will come naturally.

I guess I don't really trust Some of the hype that some of these bigger seo companies are trying to shovel to us . I write my own articles and look for the answers online as I think that this is the best way to go about this . It is however frustrating and slow work..

Steve, I was just thinking about this yesterday... your timing is perefect. As far as I am concerned, it is very difficult getting anywhere near the top without buying some links or doing some keyword optimisation aka stuffing. Whether we like it or not, some of these "not so nice" tactics work, otherwise these site won't be on top of the results.

I promised myself that I would not intentionally optimise keywords. However, the truth is I have had to cave...so I a bit guilty as the next person.

However, my sins are small.