Internet Marketing Information and Resources

On my recent travels around the web I’ve come across several ads that claim to make SEO fast, easy and automatic. Here are some examples of the claims made…

Here is a way to get hundreds of pages ranked high in google!

An automated SEO service which promotes your site in search engines with no previous knowledge required.

Three easy steps, and you can begin getting better search results, more traffic and more customers.

There are plenty of similar products, all promising to make to chore of SEO nice and easy. Yet it’s not easy. I know this because I do search engine optimisation for a living. Here’s why SEO is never fast and easy…

• It’s a moving target
• Google targets automated services
• Research and optimisation can’t be automated
• Lots of people use them

A Moving Target:

Google changes its rules, indexing and algorithms. These changes sometimes result in top-ranked sites falling far from the first page.

Unless an automated service is very new, there’s a good chance it’s based on some previous ideas about how search engines work. In my opinion, the most likely outcome from using such a service is a website that fails to dominate Google’s rankings, and a bank account that contains less money than it used to.

Google Targets Automation:

Google doesn’t like automated services. In fact, it actively targets them and punishes the sites that use them. You can see this yourself by reading Google’s webmaster guidelines. Here’s an extract…

Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches…

Google rewards original content with something unique to say. It likes content that adds to the conversation about a particular topic. Naturally enough, this excludes anything that is generated automatically by a computer program.

Research and optimisation can’t be automated:

Good SEO starts with keyword research. This involves the following…

• Make a list of the useful keyword phrases for the business in question
• Find out how many searches are made on each phrase per month
• Find out how much competition there is for each phrase
• Make a judgement call as to the best keyword phrase for the site in question
• Select 2-3 additional phrases

What an SEO expert is looking for is a phrase the client can realistically compete for. The resulting phrase has to fit the client’s budget and time-frame. If the client has an unlimited budget, the most prolific keywords can be selected. If the client has little money, a far more modest phrase must be chosen. Such a client may only be able to compete for a single word.

The next step is to optimise the site’s content. Once again, this requires  knowledge, experience and judgement. No computer program is capable of performing such a task.

Lots of people use them:

Lots of people use these automated services, in the vain hope of reaching the #1 spot in Google for dozens of different keywords. If 100 mechanics are using automated services, clearly only 10 of them will get to page one of Google.

And in fact, I predict none of them will reach page one. The more people that use such a service, the sooner it comes to Google’s attention. And then everybody using the service will find themselves falling further and further from the top.

The fact these programs are used by lots of people is my main objection to them. They’re a clumsy ham-fisted approach to SEO, and serve only to separate people from their money.