# Seo Dead?



## Dave Mac

Good article to drive home what Chris, john and George and some others keep preaching, by the way thank you.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/11/13/is-seo-dead/


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## RCP

Good article Dave, and thanks!
I really like what Jill says here:


> Finally, however, Google put their money where their mouth was with their Panda and Penguin updates. At last the only real way to do SEO was what I had been espousing all along. And it’s a beautiful thing! Today’s SEO blogs and conferences are bursting with SEO consultants talking about how, when you create amazing websites and content for your users, the search engines will follow.


Source


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## Dave Mac

RCP said:


> Good article Dave, and thanks!
> I really like what Jill says here:
> 
> Source


 who else have I herd say that a few times around here:whistling2:


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## daArch

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it sounds like a good honest site will now rank appropriately.

I used some SEO "tricks" to beat out the sleaze balls, but HONEST tricks. From what I read here, my site will still rank honestly. 

I am reading this all as a GOOD thing.

SEO is still relevant, from I read, but in a GOOD way.

But, I've been wrong before.


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## PressurePros

RCP said:


> Good article Dave, and thanks!
> I really like what Jill says here:
> 
> Source


I guess my only question is to how Jill qualifies the statement "when you create amazing websites and content for your users, the search engines will follow"

What is an "amazing" website? A frequently updated blog? Dynamic content? Properly titling pages with relevant headers and content? A strong internal link structure? Writing for good readable content versus spamming keywords?

Those are all and very much have been for years the foundations of good SEO. So to say, SEO is dead is both misleading and incorrect. The responses in that article specifically target gray and black hat techniques. They had limited success in 2008 and probably even less so today. So yes, those techniques have always been questionable. I respect Jill Whelan as one of the big players in the field so I am not outright disputing that old school SEO is dying but its still as relevant as its always been. Strong links from relevant sites (which you can still pay for) have weight. Links have to follow the golden rule of SEO that has been in place for years.. link juice.

If a page has a hundred outlinks to sites and yours is one of them.. expect little to no link juice. But I guarantee you, I could build a paint site tomorrow with mediocre content in the largest city in the US and if Sherwin Williams linked to it from their home page, I would dominate every other company in that area regardless of how old the site is. That's how SEO works and imo, always will.


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## RCP

Ken, great points, and I agree.


PressurePros said:


> I guess my only question is to how Jill qualifies the statement "when you create amazing websites and content for your users, the search engines will follow"
> 
> What is an "amazing" website? A frequently updated blog? Dynamic content? Properly titling pages with relevant headers and content? A strong internal link structure? Writing for good readable content versus spamming keywords?


I think you nailed it here



PressurePros said:


> Those are all and very much have been for years the foundations of good SEO. So to say, SEO is dead is both misleading and incorrect. The responses in that article specifically target gray and black hat techniques. They had limited success in 2008 and probably even less so today. So yes, those techniques have always been questionable. I respect Jill Whelan as one of the big players in the field so I am not outright disputing that old school SEO is dying but its still as relevant as its always been.


I think the point is the black hat SEO is dead, and as we have discussed, SEO is still relevant and important, but it "looks" different. It can be obtained by good content rather than trickery.



PressurePros said:


> If a page has a hundred outlinks to sites and yours is one of them.. expect little to no link juice. But I guarantee you, I could build a paint site tomorrow with mediocre content in the largest city in the US and if Sherwin Williams linked to it from their home page, I would dominate every other company in that area regardless of how old the site is. That's how SEO works and imo, always will.


Agree, but if the site that ranks well has mediocre/poor content , will that convert to leads or be useful? SW has a link to BP that drives traffic to it daily, but if we didn't have content that was useful to the target market from that link, would it really matter? 
What good does it do to drive traffic to a site that is not optimized to convert traffic to leads?


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## PressurePros

RCP said:


> Agree, but if the site that ranks well has mediocre/poor content , will that convert to leads or be useful? SW has a link to BP that drives traffic to it daily, but if we didn't have content that was useful to the target market from that link, would it really matter?
> What good does it do to drive traffic to a site that is not optimized to convert traffic to leads?


Absolutely on point, Chris. Good selling copy is a crucial part of the equation that cannot be left off. I have a friend in PW'ing that is hellbent on "SEO" and his content sounds ridiculous because of keyword stuffing. Are SEO and selling copy two different things? I would say they are. 

A good business is a conglomeration (if you will) of parts working together. Organization, efficiency, marketing, selling and administration if I had to narrow it down. Each of those breaks down into their own synergistic components. Good marketing and selling includes a strong website. Constructing the best possible website is one that will have good selling copy but, slightly more important needs to be found. I guess to me, it is a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Do you need the best selling copy and ever changing dynamic content first, or is it more important to first be on the radar? I would choose the latter with mediocre (not bad) content.


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## Dave Mac

one thing is for sure Google has way to much power over us, damn I miss the old days when all you needed was a good work ethic and word of mouth took care of the rest. Thank goodness for you guys, I would be even more lost then I already am.


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## Rbriggs82

Dave Mac said:


> one thing is for sure Google has way to much power over us, damn I miss the old days when all you needed was a good work ethic and word of mouth took care of the rest. Thank goodness for you guys, I would be even more lost then I already am.


It must've been nice! Do good work slap an ad in the phonebook and you were all set.

Now I spend hours working on the internet with little to no impact. I need some good dofollow backlinks but that's a tall task to achieve without black hat techniques.


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## vermontpainter

Google's job really isn't to be the world's greatest LGS. They are a search engine, for everything. If people in your area happen to be looking for answers about paint(ing), Google will serve them up the best solutions to their search inquiries. 

That is why content is important. Google has to serve up the best content so that people will keep using the search service. 

Focus on content creation that is relevant in your area. Not the keyword loaded "How to Paint a Raleigh NC Bedroom". Painting a bedroom in Raleigh is no different than painting a bedroom in Podunk. That is not unique content. It is lost in the shuffle of other bad content. 

At the same time, focus on what the user experiences when they get to your site. Make it easy for them to get to know you and contact you. 

This is all easy to say, but more difficult to do. It takes time. It is one of those things where if you can't commit to it and do it right, don't bother. 

But if you make habits out of these simple things, it doesn't matter what the latest algorithm change is. Don't bother trying to beat that system. Focus on your own. And it does involve an integrated social media effort. Google recognizes that stuff very well, especially when it ties back to a good website. 

It is work. It takes time. 

That said, you can still run a perfectly good business built upon word of mouth, referrals, and repeat customers. That is what customer retention is. 

Let's face it, most contractors here are small (1-5 people). You don't need to dominate the internet to sustain that.


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## RCP

PressurePros said:


> I guess to me, it is a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Do you need the best selling copy and ever changing dynamic content first, or is it more important to first be on the radar? I would choose the latter with mediocre (not bad) content.


Great point Ken! 
If searchers can't find your site, good/great content won't be found.
For me, I would choose the former, but that is more because I was able to easily dominate my small area and used my site more as a resource for customers who I already were in contact with. I think a site should truly represent your company, that means writing content unique to your area/company, you do a good job of that.
Tess just posted a good article about it here.


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## straight_lines

Writing great content is necessary to retain the right clients. Having a site that reads like bad advertisement will not help close sales. However its a waste of rackspace unless clients can find you. 

With all that said its still algorithms, and code will always be subject to being fooled or tricked. Google will always be changing things to try and deal with those that find ways to game the system.


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## straight_lines

I just wanted to add that I think google has been paid off, or at the very least these companies have someone working with google to create content or coding that google likes. 

Angies list, yellow pages, home advisor all rank extremely well in every keyword I have researched. They outrank sites that have traditionally beaten every other site for the same keyword for years. 

In my home town there isn't a single actual remodeling contractor listed on page one, other than the places listing which my company has managed to still be number 1. If google thinks that is what people are wanting to see when they search then we all might as well pay for a dozen landing pages and spend our money on adwords.

Seriously how does Houzz outrank a local business when you search for Kitchen Remodeling in "city, state" That makes perfect sense.


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## thinkpainting/nick

Dave Mac said:


> one thing is for sure Google has way to much power over us, damn I miss the old days when all you needed was a good work ethic and word of mouth took care of the rest. Thank goodness for you guys, I would be even more lost then I already am.


Like I keep saying organic listings are allot father down the page because of lead services paying big bucks to be there so that type of SEO does work. My last lead told me during the quote walk through that I was down the bottom of the page....I didn't like hearing that .


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## RCP

straight_lines said:


> In my home town there isn't a single actual remodeling contractor listed on page one, other than the places listing which my company has managed to still be number 1. If google thinks that is what people are wanting to see when they search then we all might as well pay for a dozen landing pages and spend our money on adwords.
> 
> Seriously how does Houzz outrank a local business when you search for Kitchen Remodeling in "city, state" That makes perfect sense.


Tommy, good point. This could be a whole other thread titled "long tail keywords".
I watch stats on several sites closely and am always surprised at the search terms used by consumers. Also, factor in the results are altered by the location and social media links a searcher has.

Do a search on a few of these terms and see the results:
what color should i paint my laundry room
does agreeable gray blend with sherwin williams exclusive plum
teak wood treated with penetrating oil
best finish for ipe wood

Google has admitted that they are working towards answering consumer questions using semantic search

So, if your content addresses these questions, and is unique, you may be able to still dominate organic search results.


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## straight_lines

Chris I understand the long tail keywords aren't very competitive. They are easy to get because no one really pursues them, its sorta low hanging fruit. 

What I have a problem with is when actual service providers are losing to the types of sites that I am seeing. 

Do a search for "painting contractor wallace nc" and look at what sort of useless crap comes up. We managed to stay on page one I assume because I am the only contractor in Wallace that has an actual website. 

This site I had never even heard of was ahead of us when I did this research.. This was in that page, a news site from Raleigh 200 miles away that has a yellow page type listing. 


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Wallace painting contractors Reviews - Find painting contractors in Wallace, NC</title>


The rest of contractors in other cities. Not one single provider located in Wallace, not one single provider that services Wallace. 

This is what I was talking about when I mentioned remodeling contractors. Houzz just added a bit of text to the header about Wallace NC to a page with contractors from Wilmington NC, and suddenly they become more important than actual contractors in that city?


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> Chris I understand the long tail keywords aren't very competitive. They are easy to get because no one really pursues them, its low hanging fruit.
> 
> What I have a problem with is when actual service providers are losing to the types of sites that I am seeing.
> 
> Did a search for "painting contractor wallace nc" and look at what sort of useless crap comes up. We managed to stay on page one.
> 
> This site I had never even heard of was ahead of us when I did this research.. This was in that page.
> 
> 
> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
> <head>
> <title>Wallace painting contractors Reviews - Find painting contractors in Wallace, NC</title>
> 
> 
> The rest of contractors in other cities. Not one single provider located in Wallace, not one single provider that services Wallace.
> 
> This is what I was talking about when I mentioned remodeling contractors. Houzz just added a bit of text to the header about Wallace NC to a page with contractors from Wilmington NC, and suddenly they become more important than actual contractors in that city?


Tommy

It does suck the amount of space those services take up on the page, but I would bet that savvy searchers see through that. In my own searching, its common to scroll down to the bottom of page 1 and click to page 2 for real results. Top rank on page 1 almost becomes like ad noise.


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## straight_lines

I hired a new marketing firm last week whom I think will be able to get us the types of leads and business I want. They do wonderful work for their clients and hopefully it will get things turned around for us.


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> I hired a new marketing firm last week whom I think will be able to get us the types of leads and business I want. They do wonderful work for their clients and hopefully it will get things turned around for us.


Multi-platform?


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## straight_lines

Not sure I understand?


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> Not sure I understand?


Will the marketing firm be advising you on positioning your website, social media and also offline pursuits?


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## straight_lines

We didn't discuss social media, I am happy with the results I have been getting through our facebook campaigns. We will do almost $200k this year from Facebook alone, and other than doing a better job with twitter, houzz, and G+ I think I have that under control. 

Very robust offering of identity based marketing. It includes pre positioning, proximity, new site, seo for the site, three different mobile sites (iOS Android, Windows), seo maintenance, and PPC set up and maintenance. 

Every bit of their content and copy I have read is excellent.


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> We didn't discuss social media, I am happy with the results I have been getting through our facebook campaigns. We will do almost $200k this year from Facebook alone, and other than doing a better job with twitter, houzz, and G+ I think I have that under control.
> 
> Very robust offering of identity based marketing. It includes pre positioning, proximity, new site, seo for the site, three different mobile sites (iOS Android, Windows), seo maintenance, and PPC set up and maintenance.
> 
> Every bit of their content and copy I have read is excellent.


Sounds like a good program. I hope you continue to do some of your own written copy, because you are very good at it. That is probably a big part of your fb success. Congrats on that. $200k comes with huge ROI in sm, I'd bet.


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## straight_lines

Yes Scott that 200k is from less than $1000 investment. I will keep writing on the company blog. I have been trying to get my wife to start doing blog posts, I really feel that having that woman's voice there would be a great asset. 

I gave her twenty some pictures two weeks ago and said here hon write a blog post about this job. I checked WP yesterday and there are two small paragraphs.. :whistling2:


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> Yes Scott that 200k is from less than $1000 investment. I will keep writing on the company blog. I have been trying to get my wife to start doing blog posts, I really feel that having that woman's voice there would be a great asset.
> 
> I gave her twenty some pictures two weeks ago and said here hon write a blog post about this job. I checked WP yesterday and there are two small paragraphs.. :whistling2:



Show her what Heidi has done in that genre.


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## straight_lines

I have.


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> I have.


That's a great example. Alot of work, but a very effective program.


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## RCP

Sounds like you have a great plan Tommy!:thumbsup: Look forward to reading D's posts, if she ever gets them done!

Scott has a good point about searcher savvy. I can see that when I search the referral terms. But I know what you mean about the Directories hogging the top space. Using a site like Yext will get you in a lot of them.
That is where Google Authorship helps too, and I notice you don't have it set up.
Rereading my last post, I shouldn't have mentioned long tail keywords, it's not so much that, as the way semantic search is changing.


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## vermontpainter

RCP said:


> Sounds like you have a great plan Tommy!:thumbsup: Look forward to reading D's posts, if she ever gets them done!
> 
> Scott has a good point about searcher savvy. I can see that when I search the referral terms. But I know what you mean about the Directories hogging the top space. Using a site like Yext will get you in a lot of them.
> That is where Google Authorship helps too, and I notice you don't have it set up.
> Rereading my last post, I shouldn't have mentioned long tail keywords, it's not so much that, as the way semantic search is changing.



Chris

One of my sites is rather high traffic, and I do the same thing - pull up the search terms that people are using to get to the site. 

It is not what you would expect at all. Long phrases and questions, stuff that I would never expect at all.


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## RCP

Yep!
True story, guy in my office is a programmer, very smart. He asked me a question about painting his garage door. I asked him how he would search online for that. He typed in "How do I paint my garage door", top search was a video, he watched it and said, "nah, I'd rather hire somebody" and went back to the *same* search results to look for a painter!


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## straight_lines

RCP said:


> Sounds like you have a great plan Tommy!:thumbsup: Look forward to reading D's posts, if she ever gets them done!
> 
> Scott has a good point about searcher savvy. I can see that when I search the referral terms. But I know what you mean about the Directories hogging the top space. Using a site like Yext will get you in a lot of them.
> That is where Google Authorship helps too, and I notice you don't have it set up.
> Rereading my last post, I shouldn't have mentioned long tail keywords, it's not so much that, as the way semantic search is changing.


I am working on getting her to realize how important it is for her to blog at least weekly. She is an excellent writer. 



vermontpainter said:


> Chris
> 
> One of my sites is rather high traffic, and I do the same thing - pull up the search terms that people are using to get to the site.
> 
> It is not what you would expect at all. Long phrases and questions, stuff that I would never expect at all.


I have seen that as well with my own blog. Its usually from out of state and is articles I wrote about using a specific product. Example would be "Using benjamin moore satin impervo waterborne enamel on interior trim"

I don't know how beneficial that is to a site like mine that is looking for local clients. For you that type of content would be very beneficial, however I haven't seen a single local hit from those type of articles. They also have a very high bounce rate.


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## straight_lines

RCP said:


> Yep!
> True story, guy in my office is a programmer, very smart. He asked me a question about painting his garage door. I asked him how he would search online for that. He typed in "How do I paint my garage door", top search was a video, he watched it and said, "nah, I'd rather hire somebody" and went back to the *same* search results to look for a painter!


Now these are the types of blog posts I should be doing on our site. :thumbsup:


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> I am working on getting her to realize how important it is for her to blog at least weekly. She is an excellent writer.
> 
> 
> 
> I have seen that as well with my own blog. Its usually from out of state and is articles I wrote about using a specific product. Example would be "Using benjamin moore satin impervo waterborne enamel on interior trim"
> 
> I don't know how beneficial that is to a site like mine that is looking for local clients. For you that type of content would be very beneficial, however I haven't seen a single local hit from those type of articles. They also have a very high bounce rate.


Good points. 

I have set up another site to experiment with the local concept you are describing. We should get back to the good old days of small group comparing notes once in a while.


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## straight_lines

I agree. Those Sunday morning over coffee meetings were great.


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## vermontpainter

straight_lines said:


> I agree. Those Sunday morning over coffee meetings were great.


We could probably rally the troops for at least a quarterly coffee.


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## RCP

It is Sunday morning, and I just made a fresh pot.....


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## vermontpainter

RCP said:


> It is Sunday morning, and I just made a fresh pot.....


It is RACE DAY!!!!


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## RCP

vermontpainter said:


> It is RACE DAY!!!!


LOL, I just googled "what races are on today"! Carry on!:scooter:


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## vermontpainter

RCP said:


> LOL, I just googled "what races are on today"! Carry on!:scooter:


The Great American Race! The SuperBowl of Motor Sports!!!


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## Sir Mixalot

RCP said:


> Yep!
> True story, guy in my office is a programmer, very smart. He asked me a question about painting his garage door. I asked him how he would search online for that. He typed in "How do I paint my garage door", top search was a video, he watched it and said, "nah, I'd rather hire somebody" and went back to the *same* search results to look for a painter!





straight_lines said:


> Now these are the types of blog posts I should be doing on our site. :thumbsup:


That's funny.  
I just recently did this blog post: How to paint a garage door


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## vermontpainter

Sir Mixalot said:


> That's funny.
> I just recently did this blog post: How to paint a garage door


Nice piece as always, Paul.


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## RCP

Sir Mixalot said:


> That's funny.
> I just recently did this blog post: How to paint a garage door


I know, I sent him the link too!


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## George Z

straight_lines said:


> Yes Scott that 200k is from less than $1000 investment. I will keep writing on the company blog. I have been trying to get my wife to start doing blog posts, I really feel that having that woman's voice there would be a great asset.
> 
> I gave her twenty some pictures two weeks ago and said here hon write a blog post about this job. I checked WP yesterday and there are two small paragraphs.. :whistling2:


I may have a similar problem.


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## vermontpainter

George Z said:


> I may have a similar problem.


Ditto.


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## George Z

vermontpainter said:


> Show her what Heidi has done in that genre.


Heidi is quite marketing savvy, tough act to follow for many of us.


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## vermontpainter

George Z said:


> Heidi is quite marketing savvy, tough act to follow for many of us.


Absolutely agree. One of the best out there.


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## Seattlepainting

How are you guys tracking results? We submitted 1075 bids based on 1876 leads in 2013; but even tracking lead source is gray area. Example we are on a job in our CRM it's Houzz as lead source; I just learned we painted clients sister on laws house.. So what is the real lead source? Many people just say we found you on the web; even when my sales people drill down they don't really know to credit FB or Angie's or Organic SERP. In addition seattle has higher than average Bing search use.

I have closely watch SEO since 2011. The landscape is unpredictable. Yelp is the highest non map result for 8 months.


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## PressurePros

RCP said:


> Yep!
> True story, guy in my office is a programmer, very smart. He asked me a question about painting his garage door. I asked him how he would search online for that. He typed in "How do I paint my garage door", top search was a video, he watched it and said, "nah, I'd rather hire somebody" and went back to the *same* search results to look for a painter!


I had to laugh at this, Chris because it is so true. Logic would dictate (to us) that one would search for a "company to wash my house in whatevertown" if they didn't use a more efficient phrase like "house washing companies", etc.

On my tracking software I see the phrase people use and some of them make me smile. The long tails are almost always in the form of a question or some generic problem the person needs to solve. This one was from yesterday. "snow left mold around my pool havertown". Ugh, no wonder its so hard to rank on Google. Worrying about Google's algorithms is the easy part. Figuring out every possible combination of the thoughts that swirl through people's heads.. not so easy.


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## PressurePros

Seattlepainting said:


> How are you guys tracking results? We submitted 1075 bids based on 1876 leads in 2013; but even tracking lead source is gray area. Example we are on a job in our CRM it's Houzz as lead source; I just learned we painted clients sister on laws house.. So what is the real lead source? Many people just say we found you on the web; even when my sales people drill down they don't really know to credit FB or Angie's or Organic SERP. In addition seattle has higher than average Bing search use.
> 
> I have closely watch SEO since 2011. The landscape is unpredictable. Yelp is the highest non map result for 8 months.


At best guess I get 100+ people that say, "I read what you were saying to someone about how to wash with low pressure and you seemed to know what you were talking about." I can only imagine that is from forums such as this one showing up in people's search results. For those that are a bit more serious in their replies on here and avoid the fun but often foolish banter, it's a good idea to have your website in your signature line for that reason.


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## WarlinePainting

Any chance I'll be able to sneak around here at the end of some threads and keep my head below the radar?

Only Chris would be the one to get me back here but I had to chime in and say I MISS SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE.


xo


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## daArch

PressurePros said:


> At best guess I get 100+ people that say, "I read what you were saying to someone about how to wash with low pressure and you seemed to know what you were talking about." I can only imagine that is from forums such as this one showing up in people's search results. For those that are a bit more serious in their replies on here and avoid the fun but often foolish banter, it's a good idea to have your website in your signature line for that reason.


and what about similar banter on FB ? Shouldn't that be avoided also :whistling2:


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## RCP

WarlinePainting said:


> Any chance I'll be able to sneak around here at the end of some threads and keep my head below the radar?
> 
> xo


Hey friend! You may have to bribe the mods with some bacon!


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## PressurePros

daArch said:


> and what about similar banter on FB ? Shouldn't that be avoided also :whistling2:


I set my privacy to friends only. No one from the internet can see my wall posts. Not sure if they could see something on someone elses wall though.


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## ReNt A PaInTeR

Seattlepainting said:


> How are you guys tracking results? We submitted 1075 bids based on 1876 leads in 2013; but even tracking lead source is gray area. Example we are on a job in our CRM it's Houzz as lead source; I just learned we painted clients sister on laws house.. So what is the real lead source? Many people just say we found you on the web; even when my sales people drill down they don't really know to credit FB or Angie's or Organic SERP. In addition seattle has higher than average Bing search use.
> 
> I have closely watch SEO since 2011. The landscape is unpredictable. Yelp is the highest non map result for 8 months.


I'm a one man crew. People calling my cell phone are usually refer to me by previous customers and they usually mention that when calling. People calling my office number are from the web.


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## vermontpainter

WarlinePainting said:


> Any chance I'll be able to sneak around here at the end of some threads and keep my head below the radar?
> 
> Only Chris would be the one to get me back here but I had to chime in and say I MISS SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE.
> 
> 
> xo


Bill is still sketch, but other than that, you should be ok.


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## Wolfgang

WarlinePainting said:


> Any chance I'll be able to sneak around here at the end of some threads and keep my head below the radar?
> 
> Only Chris would be the one to get me back here but I had to chime in and say I MISS SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE.
> 
> 
> xo


 I don't see why not. If I remember correctly, you were the one who got your knickers twisted and left in a huff. And even though you requested to be banned, it's fairly obvious you weren't. Welcome back.


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## sidingcontractors

This article isn't correct to be honest. The only thing that has happened is that mediocre SEOs are out of work. Sure, SEO has gotten tougher, but that leaves bigger rewards for those that really know the game.

When that is said, learning PPC is essential, though.


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## vermontpainter

sidingcontractors said:


> This article isn't correct to be honest. The only thing that has happened is that mediocre SEOs are out of work. Sure, SEO has gotten tougher, but that leaves bigger rewards for those that really know the game.
> 
> When that is said, learning PPC is essential, though.


I think you mean those who know the game of making people think they know the game. 

The game can't be known. That would suck.


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## PressurePros

A quickie from Matt Cutt's (of Google). Notice he does not say anything negative about link building but talks around it a little bit. Google wants you to build good content. It benefits you in the long run but it also benefits their business model. Keep that in mind when you read opinions that link building does not work. It absolutely works. 

Pretend you build a big beautiful mansion with architectural elements never seen before. You want the world to see it but you built the home in the middle of an area few people would ever travel to. Link building is akin to having someone walk through the center or town announcing the grandeur of this house. Soon other people go to see it and they start talking about it (more links). Before long the town then the state's architectural societies hear about your house/site, they go look at it. (consider these the higher PageRank sites) and they talk/link. Now it comes time to rank the best properties in the town and state and because your house has the most votes (links) it makes the #1 listing. You are now considered the authority on home building and architecture. That is the entire basis of SEO. To become the authority. In our case the authority moniker is whoever has the most control of the keywords which people are using.

Confused yet? I digressed. Here is Matt's video.


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## sidingcontractors

PressurePros said:


> A quickie from Matt Cutt's (of Google). Notice he does not say anything negative about link building but talks around it a little bit. Google wants you to build good content. It benefits you in the long run but it also benefits their business model. Keep that in mind when you read opinions that link building does not work. It absolutely works.
> 
> Pretend you build a big beautiful mansion with architectural elements never seen before. You want the world to see it but you built the home in the middle of an area few people would ever travel to. Link building is akin to having someone walk through the center or town announcing the grandeur of this house. Soon other people go to see it and they start talking about it (more links). Before long the town then the state's architectural societies hear about your house/site, they go look at it. (consider these the higher PageRank sites) and they talk/link. Now it comes time to rank the best properties in the town and state and because your house has the most votes (links) it makes the #1 listing. You are now considered the authority on home building and architecture. That is the entire basis of SEO. To become the authority. In our case the authority moniker is whoever has the most control of the keywords which people are using.
> 
> Confused yet? I digressed. Here is Matt's video.
> 
> What are the top 3-5 SEO areas where webmasters make the most mistakes? - YouTube


I agree with what you said, PressurePros.

Am I the only one who is more confused whenever having listened to Matt Cutts compared to before listening to him? Obviously, they have a certain agenda at Google that he is promoting, but you always have to decode his videos and then obviously keep that agenda in mind.

In most niches, the results at the top have clearly been using linkbuilding.


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## PressurePros

sidingcontractors said:


> I agree with what you said, PressurePros.
> 
> Am I the only one who is more confused whenever having listened to Matt Cutts compared to before listening to him? Obviously, they have a certain agenda at Google that he is promoting, but you always have to decode his videos and then obviously keep that agenda in mind.
> 
> In most niches, the results at the top have clearly been using linkbuilding.


Matt works for Google so the last thing he is going to advise is how to beat their system. They are in business to return the best search results so of course they will push writing good copy. They have a decent system for weeding things out but they can still be manipulated. Relevant link building is the number one way to do that.


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## George Z

The value of links is diminishing daily. Yandex (the Russian SE) is already not using links.
Google is also working to eliminate the value of links. They did not like what 
they came up with as an alternative but THEY are working on it. 
All you need is an announcement (or not even that) when they are ready.
For now, swimming upstream on the Google river is about wasted resources and time. 
We all have paid for it one way or another.
This is the most recent collection of what the big SEO brains think about it:
http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/02/25/pagerank

SEOs obviously have a vested interest to continue with the status quo 
but even they say that links may be still ok but their value is diminishing over time.

This is the future and it isn't too far in to the future.


> Google knows or will know and rank websites just for you by:
> what you have seen, where you have been, where you are headed, what you are thinking about, who you are looking at, how long you stayed somewhere, the history of the people you are with, your physical condition, your mental condition, etc.


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## vermontpainter

I so totally hope they do away with link values and focus on content creation. We would all be all like sahweet!


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## vermontpainter

And for those who found content to be a pain in the butt previously, it just got a little more complex (and potentially valuable). 

http://www.meetadvisors.com/post/wh...d=0&categoryid=0&topicid=0&stateid=0&pageid=1


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## PressurePros

vermontpainter said:


> I so totally hope they do away with link values and focus on content creation. We would all be all like sahweet!


I agree, but I wonder how that can be done mathematically? We will always be talking about an algorithm. How do you arbitrarily quantify content creation?


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## straight_lines

I have found that the traditional article sites got hammered and in its place new ones I had never heard of sprang up. Same slim content how to five steps to diy insert keyword here, blah blah.. just a different site. 

Maybe those sites have good content on them somewhere, but it isn't the articles that are ranking well for home improvement right now.


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## PressurePros

I've been addicted to this show Through The Wormhole. As coincidence goes, I just watched this excerpt of how communication can be plotted to show whether or not that communication is transferring knowledge (perhaps a partial answer to my algorithm question). It's only a few minutes long and worth a watch. 

http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-sh...s/through-the-wormhole-information-theory.htm


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## vermontpainter

PressurePros said:


> I agree, but I wonder how that can be done mathematically? We will always be talking about an algorithm. How do you arbitrarily quantify content creation?


Google can already read. 

If Google is expected to become capable of what George posted:

_This is the future and it isn't too far in to the future.
Quote:
Google knows or will know and rank websites just for you by:
what you have seen, where you have been, where you are headed, what you are thinking about, who you are looking at, how long you stayed somewhere, the history of the people you are with, your physical condition, your mental condition, etc._

Then I think it is certainly capable of figuring out good content and how to rank it. 

I think the whole algorithm thing is overplayed...


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## dan-o

vermontpainter said:


> Google can already read.
> 
> If Google is expected to become capable of what George posted:
> 
> _This is the future and it isn't too far in to the future.
> Quote:
> Google knows or will know and rank websites just for you by:
> what you have seen, where you have been, where you are headed, what you are thinking about, who you are looking at, how long you stayed somewhere, the history of the people you are with, your physical condition, your mental condition, etc._
> 
> Then I think it is certainly capable of figuring out good content and how to rank it.
> 
> I think the whole algorithm thing is overplayed...


With that said, do you think Google will be able to differentiate between a Festool review from somebody affiliated with the brand, such as yourself/your training program, and an objective review from an independent user such as myself?

No offense (and not in a Ricky Bobby way), the Topcoat Review festool videos/posts are quite sugar coated IMO. I love my festools, our $8k in tools gets heavily used, but they're far from perfect in terms of function or durability despite remaining an excellent option.

To me. 'good content' is genuine and objective.
Yet it seems the visibility on Google is judged with all the objectivity of an Olympic skating event; those who tick the most boxes to satisfy the Google overlord gets the largest soapbox.

I find the vast majority of social media content to be the disingenous because, honestly, wouldn't we all rather be spending time with our family/friends than updating a company facebook page after hours?
Do you really care of Mr Smith finds out to paint his garage door or are you just phishing for leads?


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## PressurePros

vermontpainter said:


> Google can already read.
> 
> If Google is expected to become capable of what George posted:
> 
> _This is the future and it isn't too far in to the future.
> Quote:
> Google knows or will know and rank websites just for you by:
> what you have seen, where you have been, where you are headed, what you are thinking about, who you are looking at, how long you stayed somewhere, the history of the people you are with, your physical condition, your mental condition, etc._
> 
> Then I think it is certainly capable of figuring out good content and how to rank it.
> 
> I think the whole algorithm thing is overplayed...


Overplayed or not, Scott, without human interaction search results are solely based on mathematical equations. Everything listed in the quote is nothing more than traceable objective data which gets inputted into the algorithmic formulas. The physical condition, mental state, etc are probably someone's dreadful vision of having chips implanted into us at birth to be monitored by computers (and exploited by advertisers).

Did you watch the short Morgan Freeman video? That was interesting and starts getting along the lines of deciphering knowledge transfer from gibberish.


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## vermontpainter

dan-o said:


> With that said, do you think Google will be able to differentiate between a Festool review from somebody affiliated with the brand, such as yourself/your training program, and an objective review from an independent user such as myself?
> 
> No offense (and not in a Ricky Bobby way), the Topcoat Review festool videos/posts are quite sugar coated IMO. I love my festools, our $8k in tools gets heavily used, but they're far from perfect in terms of function or durability despite remaining an excellent option.
> 
> To me. 'good content' is genuine and objective.
> Yet it seems the visibility on Google is judged with all the objectivity of an Olympic skating event; those who tick the most boxes to satisfy the Google overlord gets the largest soapbox.
> 
> I find the vast majority of social media content to be the disingenous because, honestly, wouldn't we all rather be spending time with our family/friends than updating a company facebook page after hours?
> Do you really care of Mr Smith finds out to paint his garage door or are you just phishing for leads?


Dan

From the online stuff that I do (and with a few years of data archived) on a few different sites and social media outlets, it seems that the Google game is a cycle. 

Google definitely rewards original content and frequency of publishing. There is no doubt about that. Those two factors lead to traffic, which leads to engagement. It seems google does serve up content somewhat based upon the way people are using it and reacting to it, which they should. When that happens, it leads to more traffic, and the cycle continues. 

To your question, I have seen lots of independent reviews of tools show up really well in results. Google does reward how recent the content is. Which is why it is important to put up content more than just once in a while. 

A big part of the discussion is Google Authorship. Being set up and working within GA correctly is important to getting your content out in front of the most people possible. 

It will be fun to see in the next year what happens with it all, especially in the context of ever changing social media dynamics as well.


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## vermontpainter

PressurePros said:


> Overplayed or not, Scott, without human interaction search results are solely based on mathematical equations. Everything listed in the quote is nothing more than traceable objective data which gets inputted into the algorithmic formulas. The physical condition, mental state, etc are probably someone's dreadful vision of having chips implanted into us at birth to be monitored by computers (and exploited by advertisers).
> 
> Did you watch the short Morgan Freeman video? That was interesting and starts getting along the lines of deciphering knowledge transfer from gibberish.


I agree Ken. That is why I wonder if Google is (or will be) able to measure engagement. It seems that they have figured out a bit of how social media should play into search results. 

We have definitely seen on our sites that if we have a piece of content that gets 300 reader comments, it tends to dominate search results for its topic. My opinion is that engagement and interaction will be a part of it, which means that content creators not only will need to be putting up good quality content, but also engaging with those who might respond to it. 

In the context of a paint company website, it is probably in many cases a bit of a diminishing return to chase after that with customers, especially in smaller markets. 

I am thinking sites in general, not necessarily sites with service offerings attempting to gain leads through content. I do have a site set up for that for my own business, and definitely feel the same as everyone else here that it is a lot of time and effort to get a site "there". And once you get close to "there", things will no doubt change. 

Keeps us all on our toes...


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## PressurePros

vermontpainter said:


> In the context of a paint company website, it is probably in many cases a bit of a diminishing return to chase after that with customers, especially in smaller markets.


This is where I think you nailed the important aspect of quality content, Scott. Google can absolutely track the time a visitor spends on a page and then legitimize how it ranks the page further by how much social engagement is present in the form of comments. 

If I were one of the guys involved in planning how to make Google a better search engine, I would bring up the point Dan made. How do we know that Scott's company offers superior service over Dan's service? Will we be rewarding a paper tiger over an equally legitimate service provider? Perhaps you and I could write well enough to engage readers but is it right to penalize a business that does not have the resources for social/educational content writing? If the third person in my hypothetical trio is not as web savvy but is a better painter than the both of us, Goggle would do a disservice to rank our websites higher. Google may have to draw the line somewhere and say that is not their problem. (companies that have their act together on the web get rewarded.. on the web)

Of course, we'll never have the answer and with Google's genius minds and billions of dollars, we're all spinning our wheels trying to figure out the details. Ultimately, we are building a link structure (stripping away the semantics of whether we label it SEO or good content building) to convert readers into buyers. All of what has been mentioned in this thread is part of that equation.


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## vermontpainter

PressurePros said:


> This is where I think you nailed the important aspect of quality content, Scott. Google can absolutely track the time a visitor spends on a page and then legitimize how it ranks the page further by how much social engagement is present in the form of comments.
> 
> If I were one of the guys involved in planning how to make Google a better search engine, I would bring up the point Dan made. How do we know that Scott's company offers superior service over Dan's service? Will we be rewarding a paper tiger over an equally legitimate service provider? Perhaps you and I could write well enough to engage readers but is it right to penalize a business that does not have the resources for social/educational content writing? If the third person in my hypothetical trio is not as web savvy but is a better painter than the both of us, Goggle would do a disservice to rank our websites higher. Google may have to draw the line somewhere and say that is not their problem. (companies that have their act together on the web get rewarded.. on the web)
> 
> Of course, we'll never have the answer and with Google's genius minds and billions of dollars, we're all spinning our wheels trying to figure out the details. Ultimately, we are building a link structure (stripping away the semantics of whether we label it SEO or good content building) to convert readers into buyers. All of what has been mentioned in this thread is part of that equation.


For better or worse, at least it is an even playing field. Everyone has the same opportunity. 

If company A does a better job of marketing online, they should win over company B, even if Company B is just as good or better. All things being relatively equal. I am not a fan of how some of the larger crap services have bought the top halves of the pages out. That is what needs to change.


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## RCP

PressurePros said:


> I had to laugh at this, Chris because it is so true. Logic would dictate (to us) that one would search for a "company to wash my house in whatevertown" if they didn't use a more efficient phrase like "house washing companies", etc.
> 
> On my tracking software I see the phrase people use and some of them make me smile. The long tails are almost always in the form of a question or some generic problem the person needs to solve. This one was from yesterday. "snow left mold around my pool havertown". Ugh, no wonder its so hard to rank on Google. Worrying about Google's algorithms is the easy part. Figuring out every possible combination of the thoughts that swirl through people's heads.. not so easy.


Ken, saw this today, thought you would like! 

Great thread guys, good points!


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## sidingcontractors

Essentially I think there are too many human variables to take into account for them to completely ignore links.

If you go to a painter's or a contractor's site, find their phone number and call it, you might only be on the site for 30 seconds even though you found exactly what you were looking for.

I think the most essential thing to improve the SE is to keep devaluing links that aren't quality and then they'd need to set up other parameters to measure the quality of a link.


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## WarlinePainting

Hi Guys,

I'm going to chime in here because I spend a considerable amount of time with my marketing team who are Google Partners and are a wealth of information. I have also spent the better part of three years building a site from scratch.

Google has one goal - make money. They have two groups that make that possible. The users that search with Google and the customers that buy their products. 

Google is putting less and less relevance on keywords and links because they want us to use PPC to attract customers. That's why your first Google Analytic keyword that represents 75% of your traffic is "google/organic". They aren't giving that info up anymore.

My take is this. If you are generally interested in bettering our industry, educating a customer, sharing your expertise, put out good content. Google will reward you by bringing people to your site. The only thing is that there is no guarantee where those people are located and that they are in your market. 

So maybe SEO isn't dead in the sense of content/topics but thinking that SEO is going to generate leads for a local business is relying on the old ways of Google and that is going to be less and less effective.

If you want customers, you need to generate leads through PPC. 

I am just now starting to rank on the first page for Google for the top keywords in my market. I don't think it has anything to do with back links, keyword stuffing or any other SEO tactics (because I try my best to avoid those things). Mostly its Google has finally started weeding through the old outdated websites with lousy sites and taking them off of their results. 

Those that invest in content will be rewarded with traffic. Those that invest in advertising will be rewarded with leads.


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