Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.
The One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web [is] pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, for free:
Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.
That’s it. Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again.
Then tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog. (Don’t have those things? Start them.) Tell people who give a shit – not strangers. Tell them why it matters to you. Find the places where your community congregates online and participate. Connect with them like a person, not a corporation. Engage. Be real.
Then do it again. And again. You’ll build a reputation for doing good work, meaning what you say, and building trust.”
I don’t understand this obsession with marketing purity. First it was don’t send out press releases and now it’s don’t use SEO. It’s like marketing is somehow dirty because it’s only used to “make up for a bad product.”
Bullshit. Marketing is important. Even the best products need to be marketed. Google had marketing and PR departments. Say what you will about About.com, but it was a great business and it was simply SEO. SEO was the product.
Start-ups are hard enough without silly religious convictions.
Notes about this post from the Tumblr community:
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brianvan reblogged this from caterpillarcowboy and added:
As someone who’s been on “optimization” duty for companies small and large, I have this pretty-well-thought opinion...
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daryn reblogged this from caterpillarcowboy and added:
I’m with Mike. It’s so easy to trivialize marketing, especially if you’re in product development or engineering, but...
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mcdavis reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
I agree. I’d say a lot of great products can get overlooked without marketing of some sort. The idea of “if you build it...
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caterpillarcowboy reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
While some people may be religious about it, as you say, I reblogged because I don’t believe you should pay an “expert”...
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mikehudack reblogged this from caterpillarcowboy and added:
I don’t understand this obsession with marketing purity. First it was don’t send out press releases and now it’s don’t...
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A truer word were ne’er spoken
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