Can we take SEO as a long term career?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

Oh really?
Semantically correct code helps SEO.
Accessible site helps SEO.
Principles of usability help SEO.

Yeah, those belong more under web development and/or Internet marketing. Accessibility, for example, has no direct impact on SE rankings.

[andrew_stephenson]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

But in reality, SEO is just a fraction what needs to be done on the website. And just having a search-engine friendly website won't get you much, because you need to make the site human-friendly as well. That's where usability, accessibility and healthy marketing comes into play.

Sure, just studying SEO may help, but you'd rather study the whole picture with efficient web design, usability, accessibility, copywriting, online marketing, etc.

SPOT ON!

The future of the internet lies with Accessibility & Usability - for some reason, pretty much neglected since the birth of the Internet.

Accessibility

Legislation has been in place in most countries for years now (Since 1st October 1999 in the UK) declaring that websites must reach at least the WAI-A certification for Accessibility. So now it is a legal requirement, big companies are finally starting to wake up to Accessibility and do something about it.

There has only been one lawsuit so far to my knowledge and that was a blind chap in Sydney taking action against the Sydney Olympics website (please correct me if I'm wrong). There was a threat of two lawsuits against companies in the UK by the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) but in return for anonymity these companies sorted their websites out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hoping for more lawsuits around the world, I'm just trying to spread the message that Accessibility can actually improve a website instead of just being something 'you have to do'.

For example,

• Search engines can generally crawl Accessibile websites easier since they are laid out using cleaner code (usually CSS)
• You are not restricting access to your site to any particular Browser, Platform or Screen Resolution

Usability

Usability is the second big part of the Internet's future since if users cannot find what they are looking for on your website quickly, they are just going to return to the search listings and click the next link.

This makes it arbitrary if you come 1st or 50th in the search engines listings, because if users can't find what they're looking for, you're stuffed!

Additionally, if you're really high up in paid listings (such as AdSense) and people can't find what they're looking when they've clicked on your site, you've just thrown your money away!

So there you go, Accessibility & Usability are the future of the Internet for me!

On a related note, I'm currently putting some Accessibility & Usability tutorials together on my website, so if anyone's interested then have a look at this page:

http://www.pinklink.biz/tutorial-signup.cfm

[A.N.Onym]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Accessibility, for example, has no direct impact on SE rankings.

John, accessibility may have direct consequences on SEO, if the site is not crawlable, uses Flash, Javascript, no text links, etc. Text links with clear labels do have slight impact on rankings, though

[A.N.Onym]

Btw, all that usability, accessibility stuff is not really SEO, but it is related with it. You can't just mark one thing SEO and live without anything else.

[andrew_stephenson]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

Btw, all that usability, accessibility stuff is not really SEO, but it is related with it. You can't just mark one thing SEO and live without anything else.

Absolutely.

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

John, accessibility may have direct consequences on SEO, if the site is not crawlable, uses Flash, Javascript, no text links, etc. Text links with clear labels do have slight impact on rankings, though

Accessibility for humans and accessibility for search engines are two different things.

[A.N.Onym]

Not really Some parts, like dynamic URLs, yes. But in large part, no

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

Btw, all that usability, accessibility stuff is not really SEO, but it is related with it.

Thank you. Of course it isn't SEO. A curse the buggers who call it SEO in an attempt to legitimize SEO as a profession.

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

You can't just mark one thing SEO and live without anything else.

It kind of makes the words meaningless when you start calling everything related to web development and Internet marketing "SEO".

[vistadivine.com]

So what do you think an owner of a top SEO firm can earn how much monthly.

Akash

[John Scott]

So what do you think an owner of a top SEO firm can earn how much monthly.

They can (and do) earn tens of thousands a month, if not more.

[vistadivine.com]

Can the President of a big SEO Company (like Submit Express, 1-Hit, SEO Inc, SEO Image) earn $100K+ per month

Akash

[digiweb]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I don't see that as SEO at all.

If valid html is not seo, what is it?

There are three reasons to bother with valid html
- make a browser happier. Browsers are never happy, so let's drop that
- make an RSS feed happier -- good goal
- make a web crawler happier -- good goal

Making valid html for a search engine is like pushing javascript to a js file. It's just mechanical cleanup. I think SEO is mechanical, SEM is art. John what's your definition of SEO?

[John Scott]

I think it's entirely possible. I don't know their numbers, but if they used cold calling as a marketing tactic, $100,000 per month would be easily do-able.

[vistadivine.com]

what is that cold calling?

Akash

[digiweb]

I often ponder that if I ever went back to work for anyone again it'd be John Scott (if he'd have me)

[John Scott]

If valid html is not seo, what is it?

Web development. Or specifically, coding.

For the most part, valid html does not affect search engine rankings.

John what's your definition of SEO?

Activities aimed at and generally accepted to directly increase search engine rankings.

There's on page SEO and there's off-site SEO. Most of it involves placement of keywords on the page, in the anchor text of links, and in building links.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by vistadivine.com

what is that cold calling?

In this case, you find people using Google Adwords and you call them up and tell them if they give you $10,000 down and $1,000 a month, they won't have to pay Google $10,000 every month in Adwords.

[Marketing Guy]

When I worked for a SEO agency, I managed around £30,000 per month worth of clients and given the company wasn't paying me that, I assume a lot was available to the directors! The leading agencies in the UK just now are turning over around £10 million + per year.

However, the inevitable result of training lots of people up to work for you means that they are now decent at SEO and as such could wander off and make more money for one or two clients than agencies can afford (or want to) pay them.

The problem with a "career" in SEO is that agencies aren't very stable - they can't recruit experienced SEOs without paying big bucks and most are happy to just recruit graduates and train them up on a lower wage.

[Rajesh]

I would be glad if sombody make some comments about Indian SEO scenario.

[Johan007]

Originally Posted by A.N.Onym

Oh really?

Semantically correct code helps SEO.
Accessible site helps SEO.
Principles of usability help SEO.

From those points only Accessibility helps SEO. However it all helps achieving a sites ambient finedability. I am big into Accessibility and is far more of challenge and very interesting compared top limited SEO.

Originally Posted by Rajesh

I would be glad if sombody make some comments about Indian SEO scenario.

Natural SEO should have been implemented from the start however outsourcing Pay Per Click management to shave the narrow profit margins in outsourcing to cheap countries like India is a competitive advantage as is Accessibility and Usability. However India is no long as cheap as it used to be.