Mark from 45n5 recently published an article & video on his blog 45n5 called “The Best SEO Advice You Will Ever Hear” and while I agree that he eventually got to one good tidbit of advice, in my opinion, I believe there are quite a few who would agree that his title was a bit over-reaching.

First what I agree with…

I like Mark’s 45n5 site and what he does there – and, it goes without saying (but I will) I like his name, in my opinion a person cannot have a better name than Mark.

“Build traffic like Google didn’t exist” – The Holy Grail of SEO Advice according to Mark

I think the “spirit” of what he is saying can be found in the final line of his video - “Build traffic like Google didn’t exist” – I take nothing new from this – there is no love lost between Mark and Google, which is part of his charm.

I find this statement to be good and true advice. I believe that everybody who uses the Internet whether a consumer or publisher, could benefit from this if the idea was genuinely taken to heart.

I found it disappointing, though, to be listening to a lot of irrelevant, flawed and generally misinformed ideas to get to the one nugget at the end this video. Through most of the video it looked to me like Mark had either confused or simply lumped a great deal of things together and called them SEO and I also found myself wondering what effect this sort of broad stroke “advice” can have on the newbie…

The items which I view very differently than Mark:

“(SEO)…puts you in a really passive state.”
“(You do this, you do that)…and sit there for a few weeks…”
“Your odds are better playing the lottery than making a ton of money with SEO.”
“SEO is a lazy person(‘)s game” – This line is not used in the video, but is written in the supporting text for the video.

In my opinion, Search Engine Optimization is not for lazy persons, nor is it a game; it is not passive, not even a little bit…

It takes a lot of hard work and planning to actively and consistently improve the effectiveness of an Internet presence. In fact, this planning can be very daunting and the learning curve steep, especially for individuals. Often, though, for consumers and those that wear “white hats” many good things come from these efforts, such as, Internet specification compliance, valuable new content, and collections of similar resources with easy to find references among just a few of the “fruits” of Search Engine Optimization. Not to mention being rewarded with higher organic rankings the longer and more consistently we pursue these efforts.

If we take Mark’s “advice” from this article at face value, it feels like we should ignore these things simply because they are part of SEO.

I read recently on the InsureMe Affiliate Blog that the “Yahoo! ranking algorithm … is a stickler for clean code” and considers “clean code” as an indication of well organized and easily readable content which it then uses along with many other factors to determine how well sites are ranked when somebody performs a search using Yahoo!…

Follow me here… if the Yahoo! algo considers clean code when determining how to rank sites, and we work hard to create spec compliant clean code, couldn’t this be considered SEO??? Should we follow Mark’s advice and ignore this because it can be considered SEO, or is it okay in this case because Yahoo! is not Google?

Speaking of Yahoo! SEO is not a Google ONLY idea. Believe it or not, there are other search engines out there. To ignore that most folks who are looking for something on the Internet usually start at a search engine or directory would be a HUGE mistake.

There is nothing wrong with asking the question, “why am I not on that first page of… Google, MSN, Yahoo!, AltaVista, DMOZ, etc. In fact, much of my SEO starts with long term questions about how I can create enough value to eventually be listed in a directory like DMOZ or Wikipedia. Even more relevant is a side comment made by Paul Bourque in one of his recent Uber Affiliate video postings, where he describes seeing stats decrease because a competitor ranks above him. I feel one way to approach dealing with this sort of thing is to ask, “Why did that competitor rank above me?” And off I would go into SEO research and improve land.

Mark seems to exclude SEO from the “active” marketing loop. From the comments in his video it looks like he believes that in order to get “real live people” to link to your content, or site, or marketing program, you need to let them know it is there through some sort networking or running around keeping yourself busy.

For some reason, Mark believes that SEO requires weeks of inactivity to wait and see what will happen. This couldn’t be further from the truth in the way that I pursue improving my search optimizations. For example, if I am not researching keywords, I may be looking for other sites to either link to or to try and get links from, I may be looking at what widgets or applications I can add to increase value to my subscribers and draw new readers to my sites, which are all elements of SEO.

I believe that one of the many methods to let people know that your content is there would be to work hard at optimizing your site and content for the engines that provide search services to consumers and Internet users in order to make them easier to discover. When your content can be found, more people benefit from it and will link to it – which will make it easier to find, which may continue to add value to other people who, in turn, may decide to link to it, and so on, and so on, and so on… in this way SEO and networking are a bit like the chicken and the egg - both have to be present for each to exist.

Ultimately, I think Mark was well intentioned in his advice, I guess, I would amend Mark’s article to say:

Do not allow yourself to be consumed solely by SEO, remember it is only one tool to be used in conjunction with others, like, high quality, new and relevant content, and some well thought out marketing ideas including networking, and perhaps even a product or two for the purpose of enhancing your consumers experience and developing a larger network so that you can put more of that wonderful green stuff in your pockets and in turn buy your kids more Wheaties.