Defiant to the end.... Snake Oil Salesman is what I call SEO experts now days. I find it interesting to see all the alleged experts still preaching old technology as cutting edge often charging their clients for next to worthless results.
As Bryant and I were discussing the furtherance and customization of the site he had naturally asked me several questions about SEO and links which I disclosed some wisdom I managed to be privy to straight from horses mouths.
Lets dispel with a few awkward assumptions that keep surfacing by the "So Called" experts of SEO so you can put up a big fat red flag when these experts come knocking to sell you a service they know nothing about. Here are my personal favorites;
1 ) The absolute most important rule. No one knows it all. Period. When they claim to, just run.
2 ) SEO Friendly URL's by and large mean little anymore. Experts that tell you it is essential should be avoided at all costs. In fact if its in their package of tricks as a major requirement for indexing you can pretty much safely assume that they are NOT keeping up with the only true facts.
3 ) .php vs .html or even .asp Guess which one matters to the search engines most? NONE! Yet I see so many claim one preference over the other all the time.
4 ) External links on the front page of their site? Look if SEO's are not telling their clients to minimize them or out right remove them then you should withhold your payment for their services. I've seen so many "experts" provide services for SEO optimization and never instruct the site owner on the errors in their page structure, link methods, even the use of RSS content as the list goes on and on. In my opinion they have not earned their money yet if they leave such basic things out of the mix.
5 ) My all time personal favorite is the absolutely stupid linking schemes that "seo experts" come up with. The top three search engines as I understand will be cracking down on such link schemes and link farms not relevant to the content among other things.
You want to rank? Then start by remembering to keep your code clean, your content unique and current, and chose your link partners wisely.
One thing that will vanish from the front of this site is all the advertising that link externally. Instead, Bryant will be offering what is called "Advertorials" which is advertising that the links on the front page, go to "Internal" content, articles or details about the advertiser. Why?
Because this kills three birds with one stone. We effectively remove external links from the front page, provide unique content, and give the much appreciated and valued advertiser greater volume in bang for his buck.
An advertiser can then write content specific to the market and audience for this very domain, providing a nice custom message, images, and details as part of the advertising package. Naturally the content page provided by the advertiser may have a link to the advertisers product or site, just not from the front page.
More details on this are soon to follow!
Your thoughts are appreciated;
~ Jared
signature? whats a signature?
JaredRitchey
Moderator: Design TeamShared Hoster
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For those of you who do SEO, when you take an SEO project for say, a simple 3 page website, how long does it take to make the site SEO friendly?