Kevin Lee: Clarity is the New SEO Currency

August 4, 2014

I’ve been working in Search Marketing for almost 20 years now (Didit launched in 1996), and as I look back on the many developments in the search ecosystem over the years, three things become immediately and blindingly apparent:

1. Things change all the time.

Search engines used to employ very simple formulas to determine the merit of a given Web page or site. Today they use hundreds of factors, and their algorithms are continually being tweaked, both to provide users better experiences on all the devices they currently use, and to thwart spammers seeking to game the system for personal profit. At the same time, the Internet of 10 — or even 5 years ago — barely resembles the complex and dynamic information system we experience and market within today.

2. When things do change, they tend to become more complex.

The fundamental job of a search engine — to serve up the best information to a particular user given the context of his/her information query — has grown far more difficult in recent times, both because the diversity of indexible content has vastly increased, and because user behavior — across a range of computing devices and in a myriad of informational contexts (including mobile) has become more complex.

3. When things become more complex, confusion is in far greater supply than clarity.

For better or worse, search engines are much less willing to disclose the details of their operations than they were several years ago.  A lot of Information that was once provided freely to 3rd parties (including search referrer data) is drying up. Nor are details about major algorithmic updates (for example Google’s Hummingbird) published at all. When the supply of objective data is scarce, conjecture (and sometimes even paranoia) quickly fill the knowledge vacuum, fueled by consultants seeking to profit from this confusion. The result is that there’s probably more misinformation being published about SEO than I’ve ever seen.

We need a new approach

What’s missing is clarity, and this omission is a serious one, especially because SEO is still one of the best, most cost-effective ways for marketers to achieve their objectives online. To that end, I’m very glad to have supplied the forward to a new ebook on SEO called SEO Like I’m 5, written by Matt Capala, a terrific guy I got to know on the lecture circuit. Matt’s a professor at NYU who takes great pride in putting actionable knowledge about SEO in the hands of young people just getting into Internet Marketing. He’s one of the “good guys” in SEO who eschews tips and tricks in favor of long-term, ethical strategies that work.

Matt wrote this new ebook for people — regular people like you and me — not doctoral research fellows studying Semiotics, Semantics, or Information Theory. While his book addresses the important mechanics of how search engines work, how they understand Web content, and the optimization tasks required for better visibility, its main focus is empowering you — using an accessible workshop style — with the tools you’ll need to build real influence on the Internet. I really like SEO Like I’m 5 because it’s designed to take the mystery out of SEO and put you on the right path to achieving true, long-lasting search engine visibility for yourself and your clients.