Comments on: Doing the legwork — No SEO guts, no SEO glory

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:40:06 +0000

Zach, I know where you are coming from on this. There are really no barriers to entry in this field, so it allows anyone to claim that they are an SEO professional. This makes it especially hard for good people to separate the good from the bad.
The other tricky part is that SEO tactics that worked a few years ago won’t work now, so if you aren’t staying up on trends you will fall behind, and quickly.
I think the “proof is in the pudding”, as those who are able to show results, and get raving recommendations from their clients obviously know what they are doing, the others will eventually fail.
As for me, my company is new here in Denver, (although we have been freelance SEO’s for years) so until we establish ourselves we’ll be lumped in with the “younguns”, but I know that in 5 years, we’ll still be around, and the results will be there to show.
And yes, SEO is always a competition…

By: Zack Katz

Zack Katz — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:15:21 +0000

@Jordan – For me, without competition there is no context to how you’re doing, especially in SEO. Since SEO is about ranking well and striving for the higher rank, I believe SEO is inherently a competition.

By: Jordan Pearce

Jordan Pearce — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:16:43 +0000

I don’t see SEO as a competition. When you live it, it is just a way of life.

By: ryanre

ryanre — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:35:52 +0000

Thanks for the Twitter follow Zack. I have been involved in seo with own my own real estate websites for the last 6 years. The rules of the game have definitely made a noticeable change over that time.

I look forward to reading more of your blog posts.

By: Cade Lee

Cade Lee — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:14:18 +0000

Zach, I understand your frustration as we have met many other “SEO” professionals in town and to date most of them seemed to really understand CPC or PPC very well, in my book there is much more to SEM than simply PPC or obtaining a visible local listing.

We have never atteneded a meeting here locally with other SEO’s and we are going to the next meetup here on the 15th. We are pretty excited to see what happens there. You should really come.

We had the opportunity to meet with Mike Belasco and he really recommended that we go to some of these meeting as they have been useful to him and his group.

I hope to meet you there!

By: Knox

Knox — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:46:49 +0000

Thanks for the compiment Zack. I was at B&N the other day and noticed a lot of books too. They weren’t around when I got into this game.

The young guns will be needing a real paycheck after they fail a few clients and won’t be bothering you any more.

Personally, I’m amused when I read an seo blog that sprang up yesterday claiming their service is the best in town… ummm, “who are you?” is what I think to myself, then I sigh when I read a simple regurgitation of what was written in a forum 3 years ago.

I know you’re good at this, and why your blog is one of only 2 around here that I’ll read past the first sentence. Actually, with yours I read all of it.

By: Mike Belasco

Mike Belasco — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:05:35 +0000

Cool Zach, I look forward to meeting you there sometime soon!

By: Zack Katz

Zack Katz — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:08:04 +0000

@Mike – I do plan on going to the SEO meetup soon. I’m looking forward to meeting others in my field locally.

I didn’t mean to diss the Meetup, sorry if it came out that way! I simply want to see people taking it upon themselves to learn the skills the hard way — because I believe that’s the best way to truly understand what’s going on.

By: Mike Belasco

Mike Belasco — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:59:59 +0000

Zach,
You should come to one of the meetups. Sure there are beginners but everyone has to start somewhere. I think you’d be impressed by some of the folks you meet.

By: Carolyn G-Tu

Carolyn G-Tu — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:46:51 +0000

I’m actually getting a little better about not checking rank constantly – baby steps. I was talking more about bigger algo changes that haven’t been so kind. I think going forward I’m going to be better prepared for change.

Back to your post, I do think that many people do not know the right questions to ask when looking for help to be found in the search engines. That makes it easy to hire the wrong company.