It must be the time of year. End-of-yearitis. A time when everyone must share their SEO success tips in a last ditch effort to drag traffic through the door of their blog. My feed reader starts filling with blog post after blog post promising me that their words would make my blog a raving success.
They have no freakin’ clue what they are blogging about.
I came across one article that got a lot of Diggs and was showcased across several bookmarking sites among the top 25 or so tips for successful SEO for search engines. Guess what numbers one and two for the best SEO techniques were?
Number one tip for search engine optimization? Looks count.
What?
Number two tip for search engine optimization? Choose complementary colors.
Huh?
Search engines don’t care what your site looks like. Readers do, search engines don’t. They don’t “look” at it. They blindly go through gathering information.
The best tip on SEO you can get is make sure there are no road blocks in your underlying code to stop a search engine from crawling through your entire blog.
Was that even in the list?
No.
The second best suggestion is to include keywords, search terms people use to search for what you are writing about, in your post title and post content.
Did I find anything about keywords? Nope! That nary got a mention. Only tips for a blog’s looks and buying “professional” WordPress Themes or paying a pro to design your website if you want to get ahead in the Google PageRank game.
Please. Don’t embarrass yourself by not knowing a thing or two about SEO before you blog about it.
I don’t blog about building cars. I don’t blog about curing cancer. I certainly don’t blog about religion, though I might have an opinion or two. I also don’t expect the Pope to blog about WordPress. SEO I know about. If you don’t know what you are blogging about, why blog about that which you understand not.
Sure there is the “blog as you learn” factor, but then you aren’t an expert, so don’t blog like one. Blog like the student you are.
When I visit a blog post titled “Search Engine Optimization Expert”, however it is worded, I expect to find serious expertise, not someone chasing link juice. I’m your reader. Don’t disappoint me.
I don’t care what you are an expert in, blog about that. Make your blog the source for your expertise. Share your opinion, your experiences, but tell folks you aren’t an expert if you are not. Let the experts handle the expert stuff and let you handle your expert stuff.
There is so much clutter on the web, why add useless information you honestly know nothing about to the trash pile. I know you want the link juice. I know you want to be dug by Digg. I know you crave getting StumbleUponed or Twittered about, but let’s stop the nonsense and get down to the meaningful, original content.
Are there any original thoughts left out there?
