The Very Dark Secret of SEO
(Search Engine Optimization)

A Velocity Associates  Report by Tom Holzel
February, 2008 

The web space abounds with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists.  Each promises to raise your Google/Yahoo/MSN search engine rank so your product or company has a better chance of being found by surfing prospects. This, they suggest, will cause your business to thrive. But they all avoid the elephant in the room: All of them concentrate exclusively on TECHNICAL SEO—that is, you write your pitch and they’ll help get it found. 

The dark secret of SEO is that "technical" SEO is only one-half of the story! And it’s the second half! Described here is the far more important first half. But first a brief word on why there is so much emphasis on this second, less important technical half of SEO. 

99% of articles and books on SEO are written by computer geeks. And what do computer geeks write about? They write about what they know, i. e., how to technically optimize a website. These are all the technical tips. Yet those tips do work and they are effective. One such work is Search Engine Optimization Made Easy by Brad Callen. This is an excellent example of Technical SEO. Follow its tips and your website ranking is sure to rise. 

Search engines (especially Google) are not primarily designed to be fooled by techniques. They are designed to find what surfers are looking for and specifically avoid artificial lures. Search engine spiders troll through websites and with their complex algorithms, try to assess the value of the content of the site. What is the site saying, what is the message, how informative is it, does it give out real information? 

Thus, the primary feature of any website that will increase search engine rank is high-quality content--not SEO trickery. 

Why don't SEO gurus address this subject? Because they are nearly all computer nerds, not English language nerds. Structuring and then writing clear, concise and evocative copy is a very specific (and difficult) skill . Most computer nerds cannot write well at all--it's not the talent they have. So they concentrate their efforts on what they do know, and the result is often a fine book such as Brad Callen’s. But consider this: What good is it to successfully drive hundreds of new prospects to a website with a garbled message? They will simply blanche at the confusing content for about 7 seconds--and then click on to a more congenial site. Your powerful technical SEO program will have driven prospects to your competitors!!

How do I know this? Well I happen to be an expert writer, and long before I knew anything about SEO, I produced a website with 18 articles on it (www.velocitypress.com).  As each article was added, Google quickly recognized it and gave it a ranking. At one point, 8 of the 18 essays were ranked Google #1 in their category.  All this with zero technical SEO. 

Does this mean that all it takes to increase your SE ranking is to be a good writer? Unfortunately, no. It means that's where you start. You begin with an optimum "position" which is then described by an excellent copy writer. To do this there is one additional element you must also have--and that is editorial distance. For reasons that I'm sure a psychologist will one day figure out, it is impossible to sing your own song and stay on key. (And I really mean impossible.) Think how difficult it is to write your own resume--but how effortless it is to criticize some one else's. Likewise, you must find some one else to assess what you wish your website to do, and then organize the two or three themes that you can place on the home page for maximally advantageous positioning. Having successfully done that, then (and only then) you can create the copy and then decide what graphical treatment you’ll want to use to support your text (And NOT the other way around!) 

So what are the "secrets" to optimal SEO? Well, it's never easy; and, like any great skill (e.g., flying an airplane) it can’t be taught in a 90-page book.  And it’s hard work! Here are some tips: 

• First, determine what your 2 or 3 primary selling propositions are, and then push all the others off the home page. (Engineers find this impossible to do. They just have to tell everything.)
• Be concrete. Tell concise stories illustrating a typical problem—and then describe your clever solution. Concrete. Concise.
• And just because you once won the high school poetry contest, refuse to use flowery language, fifty-cent words, or long Germanic sentences.
• Having thus raised interest, give the prospect an easy path to get more information, namely from your salesmen—NOT from the website. Once it has raised interest, it has done its job. Send your prospect to a knowledgeable human. Do NOT give him enough information to “figure it our for himself.”

Sure technical SEO is an important secondary part of the task. But it is far more  important to define the position of your product or service, and then illustrate that position in a short, fascinating way--without any hype or sales baloney. 

So the short answer is, it takes both serious copywriting skill AND technical SEO to maximize web traffic and click-through. But, if you can only afford one of these--you can't get anywhere with diffuse, turgid copy, so technical SEO alone won’t do you any good at all. Even if it drives prospects there, if the copy is sloppy, turgid or just plain confusing, they’ll leave in droves. (And click on to your closest competitor!) But sharpen your message and your rankings will skyrocket. Then add SEO and you'll boost them even more.