Oxford SEO Studies Blog

  has just published an interesting indictment of standard SEO practices as delivered by traditional SEO firms entitled SEO At the Enterprise Level–A Major Flop.  To be fair, it points out that the reason current approach by enterprises to incorporating SEO techniques is failing is down to common misassumptions on both  parts of the client and  SEO relationship.

SEO Failures

One basic misassumption is that there’s one single formula, one technique that equates to the “killer application” and beats all other approaches hands down.  All a client has to do is fine the right SEO agency or hire the right SEO and they’ll immediately start outstripping their competitors first on Google rankings for key terms.  Then they sit back and feed on the enormous stream of traffic and subsequent subscribing return customers that the ranking generates.

Any SEO who knows their links from their alt tags will tell you that there isn’t one magic technique and that basic SEO housekeeping involves a constellation of elements both on page and off page that need to be implemented in tandem and coordinated in terms of the development of the site.  Which is one reason that clients who have yet to design their websites have a distinct SEO advantage over those who are trying to adapt their existing site to conform to SEO best practice.    

Ideally, an enterprise brings in an SEO expert or agency at the planning stage of development so that they can work with the designers and developers to insure best practice and that none of the design elements present obstacles.  

If there’s one word of advice to be garnered from this blog above all others it’s DON’T LEAVE SEO TO THE DEVELOPER;  or website designer.  You’re actually better off learning the techniques and doing it yourself than trusting the designer.  We say this because so many existing web boutiques now claim that they do SEO as a standard component of their design service, or worse still, they’ve always done it.  Don’t believe them.  SEO is a specialist skill just like any other and you don’t have to be special or talented to accomplish it, but you do have to have the focus and that’s what web design boutiques lack: the focus on SEO.  

Nearly without fail, they will consistently approach the SEO elements as an adjunct, or add on service and always sacrifice those techniques for the sake of their actual focus, which is design.  Then when disappointing results emerge down the line, they bluff and blag their way through html excuses and mysterious ‘other factors’.  Web site designers, design; search engine optimisers, optimise.  That’s not to say one can do accomplish work of the other (In both directions); it’s just that people tend to do very well at their speciality and the jack of all trades is the master of none.  Of course no SEO can claim specific results because no one knows what the clients competition will be doing to address the SEO equation, which is why you need an SEO willing to pay longer ongoing attention that a web designer or developer is likely or meant to. 

Another business culture conflict that inhibits effective SEO is concisely put as “Enterprise and SEO is like cognitive dissonance–SEO is nimble, experimental, dynamic, continuously iterating, never-ending process. A complete anathema to enterprise IT which is project focused, do it and forget it.”  Companies should be more consistently updating their sites, by blog or by other means.  But agencies just provide client services in the form of one project after another.  Effective SEO is nimble, dynamic and like a boxer, light on its feet but consistently addressing the focus.  Ali’s ‘float like a butterfly but sting like a bee’ comes to mind as good rule of thumb for effective SEO providing you never leave the ring for long.  Examples of companies handling SEO well: Cabela’s (search Google for “hunting socks” for example). Another is Expedia.com (search for “disneyworld vacation“).

The floating butterflies of SEO ultimately will be staying in business as the great Semantic wave begins to wash over our data structures.  They’ll stay in the SEO business because they’ll perceive the semantic surge as just another variation in the ongoing flux of SEO and they will adapt to it by learning RDFs scheme mark up or by partnering with development teams that know it.  They’ll start explaining terms like Ontologies and Meta Format data to their clients and they’ll be charging a little bit more to implement those solutions.  But adapt they will, because their survival is based on achieving measurable results and as the wave washes over out data, we’ll need to add a layer to maintain those results.

Meanwhile as the wave gather even more momentum, new web resources emerge to help and educate us on semantic best practice.  The latest being the Semantic Universea useful resource site stocked with articles, studies, advice and feeds on semantic development as well as international conferences, white papers and discussions.  The site appears to be slanted towards the commercial user which makes a nice balance from the more academic and purist W3C, although we’d still go there first for corroboration.

Likewise Tripit is a semantic application that immediately organises all your travel plans into one  meaningfully linked  place.  The world and the universe just got a little bit easier to navigate.

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