Nowadays there are a lot of websites and blogs about SEO and also a lot of books, videos and free passes from gurus and so-called gurus. Hell, I’ll even admit sometimes I recycle other people’s stuff (although I prefer to call it commenting and the stuff I do swipe is really interesting and worth debating, and I also try to add a bit more that there was initially). But the point here is, SEO is a business, and like any business if you really want to make a buck, you need to be up with the latest stuff. And I mean zero-day things, not necessarily black-hat, or even gray-hat (if one could image such things) but the newest white hat stuff.

In my opinion all SEO is gray hat because although the purpose is to optimize a website and help Google deliver A-grade content to its searchers, usually you get to use techniques which fool the search engine into preferring you over someone who technically may have more of a right to be there. However, just to make things clear, you will never beat the true A-players, like wikipedia and established sites from 1981, but you may get close if you invest a lot of time and a lot of money.

Having said that, there needs to be a change in the way people perceive the whole SEO phenomenon, and by that I mean a sort of Kansas City Shuffle, if you’ve seen the movie. You go left when everyone goes right. We live in an age of information, and that means it’s hard to get a serious advantage when everyone can take one look at your source code and figure out hours of work you put in. As I explained in the meta tags post, there’s no point in letting everyone know what you do. Sure, you can set up a sort of honeymonkey to look at competitors and flag you when they do make a move and see what happens when you search for them (although that may be a bit… unethical). I’ve seen people make entire directories of keywords, just to see what is where on the web, and all for what? To keep posted about what X is doing and match that, and then match Y, and maybe beat them…

But truthfully, SEO is just the beginning… At least in the classical sense. SEO is what every website should do before anything else. SEO is what a website needs to start with, it’s a way of thinking it so that not only people can navigate it. It’s a way of making a website for the web, not just for people. But then, that site needs to grow… That’s why a lot of people have started adding social networking features, which is pretty stupid… I don’t care who else buys furniture at the local supermarket, that’s not a crowd I want to meet. Sure, if I’m shopping for my next DSLR or high-end watch I may want to find people to network with, but still, I just want to buy it and maybe gloat to others, but not online…

A website is not just a notice board for the company, it’s a linear way of thinking… I mean, think of a car dealership. A website is like that, almost, with a bunch of cars, a guy sitting at an office, and flyers. But he sells you the car, not just you walking around, that’s boring and unintuitive… A dealership offers you the chance to drive a car, why doesn’t a website? I would spend half a day playing with a website which allows me to watch a 360 degree video shot from inside the latest BMW going through Slovenian towns for example. I’m sure someone will steal this idea, but the main idea is that why not make a website at least as interesting and useful as a real shop… I know full well that a virtual drive test is not the same thing as the real thing but it’s close… It’s a way of fulfilling a customer’s expectations. I mean all sites are photos of cars, which was ok in magazine ads, but that was because you could not do more… And the Audi R8 was the most amazing thing when it premiered but now that I think of it, the whole theme of the website was it going round a track, and how many buyers will take it on a track more than once a year? None, they’ll all be rich hip kids going to discos in them… And just think of the social media implications this would have… letting you see 360 full motion video from a BMW, I’m sure many people would like it… And given the option to zoom in on the dashboard or the scenery, with realistic engine sound… My mouth is watering from the idea. I know I’ve veered off the path of SEO, but that is what SEO is actually about: content.

Reinvent content. Reshape the website to be more than a collection of flat ads running in a bland browser. Think of the web and design for it, don’t just recycle offline stuff… Thing like a magazine marketer and say “what can’t I do in a magazine” and do that on the web. Add stuff customers want to see, if you’ve got a budget make the experience as interactive as possible… Do more than just cleaning up XHTML…

I hope you enjoyed this piece and I’m so busy I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post again, just scower the archive, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there…

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