The Best SEO Strategy: Don’t Do SEO!
Unless you’re here for the first time you know that I’ve often written about SEO without SEO. What I meant was a new approach to search which basically goes beyond it or rather is organic.
You simply build the best possible site for people.
Organic site development means that in the end you can expect a better performance on Google and other search engines. This approach also helps with social media sites. Today I won’t reiterate that.
What people do when behind closed doors
Today I will focus on practicing SEO but not telling anybody that you actually do it.
Most webmasters practice SEO behind closed doors.
Webmasters and bloggers routinely
- use search friendly software like WordPress
- optimize their page titles
- add XML sitemaps
- use keywords they want to be found for
- share their content on social media
- use mail to promote their work
- create content they want to linked for
In short webmasters and bloggers adhere to SEO and SEO 2.0 best practices. That’s fine.
When asked whether they do SEO though some of them will vehemently deny it. They even get angry at you.
Some even publish the typical “SEO is bullshit” articles after searching on my SEO blog for “why is SEO bullshit”.
Others will simply not acknowledge that they practice SEO and just consider it to be spam.
A public example
Once a well known search marketing industry figure was featured on TechCrunch. The TechCrunch article mentioned nowhere whatsoever that he is involved in SEO or search marketing.
He got two links nonetheless, one to a company of his and one to his private cartoon blog.
On Twitter I wrote him that it doesn’t mention the fact he does SEO. He replied in the typical manner of one of the main group of SEO deniers: jokingly.
As it was a private message I won’t disclose what he said. It was evident the he knew what he was doing though.
Why do people hide their search engine optimization efforts?
Most such webmasters are fully aware of doing SEO and quite OK with it but unlike me they don’t want get the heat for doing it.
In fact unless you like an occasional fight and do not care for people not liking you by default
the best SEO strategy still is: don’t do SEO! At least do not admit it!
There are several ways to outsmart most people though: You can say things like: “I do”
- search marketing
- Internet marketing
- online marketing
- Internet consulting
- Internet business consulting
- social media consulting
etc.
You only practice SEO and admit it if you really care. Otherwise you stay low-key and don’t explain things.
A dark history lesson I learned from
Why do I care for teaching search engine optimization? I’m a Pole living in Germany. You know Poland was the country that was invaded by Hitler to start the WWII.
The Nazis considered Poles to be “subhuman” which was almost as bad as being Jewish. Thus they not only killed off the Polish Jews but millions of Poles too.
Today most Germans don’t even know that 6 millions Poles were killed by the Nazis.
What most Germans know are Polish jokes though, jokes that are not made by Poles but jokes that ridicule Poles among other aspects of prejudice.
Poles are really among the most disrespected foreigners in Germany. Only Turks are more detested according to statistics.
How to become invisible
Most Poles who moved to Germany chose the easy way: adapt as much as possible and become invisible. Merge with German population and become invisible.
I on the other hand will never hide who I am or where I come from. Thus I also won’t hide what I do or write about. I’m not ashamed of any part of my identity.
Especially as SEO is practiced by almost everybody unless they’re stuck in 99. There is no rational reason to hate it just like there is no reason to hate Poles.
Last updated: March 16th, 2017.
I can’t agree with your comparision between SEO and jokes about Polish people.
Polish jokes are delivering prejudices and harm Poles. Also they often show racist view of the world.
But doing onsite SEO like optimizing title tags and your link infrastructure doesn’t harm anybody in almost all cases.
Doing offsite SEO like spamming blogs and something similar is as bad as Polish jokes.
And doing spamming is what most people understand under SEO. So the choosen SEO strategy must be rated.
And an obscure SEO strategy has to be hidden. But an effective SEO strategy is mostly not published. So SEOs will have to deal with this. Accomplishing obscure or non public will always be an obscure strategy, so everybody will deny doing SEO.
But I love search engine optimization. I just love spending all my time on it.
Hi TAD
I normally don’t comment on other people’s SEO posts, but today you made my fingers tickle : )
I don’t get the ‘speaking out for doing SEO’ connection and the shit that went on in Europe in the 2nd World War. I kind of see where you are coming from but it just feels a bit odd.
The general misconception of what SEO is or what it can (and can’t) do is slightly annoying if you work in this area but that comes with the job and you have to deal with it. Everybody who works for the CIA or Mossad has to deal with problems like this (That’s a silly comparison but you might see what I mean).
I applaud you to stand up against stupidity, prejudice and racism, as these were the main reasons why I packed my suitcase in 2005 and left Germany. I now live and work in the UK and although the life is better here, stupidity, prejudice and racism can be found here as well. Of course. I just had 3 Polish couch surfers to stay at our house for a week and I caught myself pointing out to other English people how great & nice they where ..as if I HAD to make a positive point about them.
Anyway, back to SEO. I rarely talk about SEO, mainly because I am not a freelancer and don’t have to constantly raise my profile. I am quite happy to stay under the radar, as it is much easier to achieve certain things. Talking about misconceptions: For Marc off-site SEO means spamming blogs, your neighbour might think on-site SEO means working with the devil and your new client might think SEO is a quick one-way ticket to a #1 Google ranking. Although there is so much info about SEO online and everybody can read about it, it is still this mythical beast that in my book only a small number of people fully understand.
I always explain SEO to newbies like this: If you have a car and you leave it like it is, it will run as fast and handle like all the other cars. But there are different possible stages of tuning. Stage 1 tuning is legal. You put the right pressure in your tires, clean your back mirrors, clean your air filters and maybe put some better brakes on. If you have the money, you might even invest in some spoilers and alloy wheels. Stage 2 tuning means putting a much bigger engine in your car – which is illegal but who cares as it’s much more fun and you are faster than other cars. A bad SEO guy will also put a really loud exhaust pipe on that car and lot’s of big racing stickers whereas a clever SEO guy will just tune your engine to perfection, strengthen your suspension and gives you on top a race driving course, so you don’t end up in the ditch after six month.
As an SEO/Linker I don’t care about white hat or black hat, because I work for the client and not for Google. Some clients need a bit of this and some need a bit of that. As long as I keep any tactics transparent towards the client, I don’t get a problem. But in the long run, most of the black hat techniques will backfire and a quality website with great content will always beat the quick spammy fix.
I always try not to use the word ‘marketing’ in my job explanations because that just smells like someone trying to sell you some rubbish that you already have or don’t really need.
Coming back to your 2nd World War connection: You sound as if you are a bit frustrated with the Germans. Maybe you should take a holiday and see how the grass grows in the UK? Most people that I’ve met here so far are extremely friendly and (unlike the majority of Germans) can laugh about themselves. Oooops.. that might sound slightly racist against Germans ; )
Anyway, take it easy & have a great long weekend. (Don’t get into trouble at the 1st of May riots in Berlin)
Thanks guys for the huge comments. To be more clear: The connection between SEO and WWII is that of prejudice.
When I tell people I’m Polish the first thing most people say in Germany is a Polish Joke or something like “You’re a good Pole you don’t steal my car, do you?” On the other hand they don’t really know anything about Poland.
It’s the same with SEO. People don’t know what SEO is but assume I’m some kind of criminal.
I’m to proud to hide being Polish and SEO. I prefer to fight back. I tell Germans really nasty German jokes then. Usually they assume it’s not a problem telling Polish jokes. After they hear the German jokes they stop smiling.
Well what a bizarre blog, it’s like a plumber not admitting that he fits pipes and calling himself a tublar aqua operative, what does it matter what you do or call yourself as long as it works, all sounds a bit precious to me!
m, I had to edit your “name” as you ignored my commenting netiquette.
Not the blog is bizarre, it’s the situation of SEO that is.
Theres nothing wrong with me being proud of the work i do i think. Its mostly SEO focused, and i see the positive results of what we do on a daily basis. I know it works, i know how powerful it can be if its done RIGHT.
An odd view of the world, although I do see the point you are trying to make. Advertising, in any form, can be clever and delightful or highly annoying – depending on the viewer’s preference.
SEO works when it is used wisely, I agree. As for being viewed as the “bad guy”, all advertising and marketing professionals bear that risk…it comes with the job.
I think SEO happens more between your ears than most expect. I try to help as I can in forums and such, but many webmasters are looking for black and white buttons to push.. (Like link spamming blogs), but frankly every website on itself is a different situation than another… If you plan is a cookie cutter you will get cookie cutter results. Most don’t have the dedication to do it right, think it through and be successful.
I’d venture to say that many just don’t get SEO and when they don’t it becomes a demon. I have to admit, I get a bit frustrated when I come across something that I don’t understand. It’s human nature, is it not? Many forge on, but there are also many that throw their hands in the air and give in. I recently came across a fellow in a forum that thinks SEO is underhanded. Optimizing your web pages is “dishonest”. I can’t truly understand that thinking, but I can agree that the man has a right to his own opinions. So, yeah. Don’t do SEO! It’s for the birds…
People are just scared that their comments and with that their backlinks are being deleted if they admin they’re doing SEO! :-)
It’s just waiting for the day Google stops counting links and looking at pageranks and stuff… Don’t know what will follow though…
i dont understand why so many people look down upon seo. if your website makes money it is a business and you should do everything you can to make your business the best it can be.
I agree with dug and other posts. Why the shame of using SEO? Its what built many Internet entrepreneurs.
A lot of SEO companies charge you large sums of money and they usually farm out the work and it is really not worth it.
This post is so vague to me. How can someone do seo without doing it? I mean with SEO one must have a defined plan. He need to have keywords, optimized content, things which one needs to do for SEO etc. It has a direction. And is scalable.
So if what you are suggesting is done, we will never know, how successful have we been in SEO. Also, we can not repeat the results with other sites. So its just vague idea.
What is your commenting netiquette. I see that some of the author links in comments are do-follow, while rest are no-follow.
I would also like to know how do you do it. Use some plugins ??
I don’t agree with this post completely. Sometimes happened that you don’t have to do anything with SEO, and results come. i think a good quality content + basic on site SEO makes things a lot easier.
I do not agree with this. I also get result for my site as well those site which I am working on it.
Do right things in a right way ,SEO play good role in internet marketing and brings search result into your favor , increase traffic, if somebody getting negative results, check the are you going in right way or wrong
As an SEO/Linker I don’t care about white hat or black hat, because I work for the client and not for Google. Some clients need a bit of this and some need a bit of that. As long as I keep any tactics transparent towards the client, I don’t get a problem. But in the long run, most of the black hat techniques will backfire and a quality website with great content will always beat the quick spammy fix.
I agree derek, its about our clients, and how we can safely help them towards their seo goals.
Great article. I think the point is that people are much more likely to link to you if you don’t look like SEO is your entire purpose. Google doesn’t like SERP manipulation, and just having a good site that gets natural links is the best way to do it. Good linkbait and content does it for you. I think that is the point.
I’m from the UK and I went to Poland recently. I found the people to be very nice and they had very tasty food.
Why does SEO have to be a dirty word (or acronym)? Why can’t we accept that in the process or going about our business we make decisions that will position our website in Google and the other search engines.
It is only natural to promote what you do – I suppose the important thing is to do that without cluttering up the Internet and annoying our fellow surfers.
I sincerely hope that not what I’ve just done by posting this :-) comment.
I think SEO is a process of making the website available to its customers, in the process making sure that we have done everything correctly…
A designer would always worry about font, layout, images, colours etc… To fix the website we use the correct methods (i would not even say methods because it is the proper way of doing), Google has always said and has been saying create a site for customers and not for Search Engines…
I think that is only formula as far as On page optimization is concerned because i most get all my new pages indexed in no time.
Nice info… It makes me think again about using wordpress.. coz i’m still faithfull with blogger now.. thx
I will agree with this post, admitting that you are an SEO can/may sometimes make our blogs/articles to be a little bit suspicious. I mean their might be a question on what is our motives/purpose for writing it and that is to build links for our site. The main drive is not to give useful information but rather to gain popularity by getting attention from others. This can also be thought as we are selling/promoting something w/c might sound telling others to do something for us. This will compare an SEO to an advertizer which often times promotes something that people don’t need and they dont care because they were paid by doing so anyway. But what makes it worst was that people just dont want to be put into someone’s pockets and they tend to just drop you off when you dont sound natural. I mean,by portraying ourselves as a plain article write not an SEO it will make works to look natural and I guess this was the message of the article here.
you’ve got a clear point, a true SEO expert must always hide himself and overdo things…
Sometimes proper moderation is the key! to look things natural…
correction, an SEO expert must not overdo himself and must have to do his thing in proper moderation as possible. One example is in link building, we should not spam a link from one the same site. A few links coming from a few quality sites will do more a hundred links coming from one and the same site. Links coming from low quality sites will also not offer good things to you..
I think SEO is a process of making the website available to its customers, in the process making sure that we have done everything correctly…
A designer would always worry about font, layout, images, colours etc… To fix the website we use the correct methods (i would not even say methods because it is the proper way of doing), Google has always said and has been saying create a site for customers and not for Search Engines…
I think that is only formula as far as On page optimization is concerned because i most get all my new pages indexed in no time.