Beware of Automated SEO
Picture this; you've got a problem with your ISP. You know you need to ring the helpdesk, so with trepidation you pick up the phone and call them. Soon enough you're speaking to one of those horrid voice recognition boxes:
It: Hello, please state the name of the department you'd like to speak to.
You: Support.
It: I'm sorry, we don't have a “sports” department.
You: Support, I said support!
It: I'm sorry, we don't have an “iced sports” section.
You: Ahhh! I hate automated voice systems!
It: Thank you, connecting you to 'automated voice systems' now.
The point I'm trying to make through humor here is that an automated solution is generally an always inferior way to handle interpersonal communications. Granted, machines such as vending machines and teller machines greatly increase the efficiency of an interaction, but in those cases it isn't interpersonal: you just want to purchase a refreshment or get some money from the bank - any conversation is outside the primary goal.
When you think about what a search engine query is, it's more person-to-person than person-to-machine. The person typing in the keywords is often asking an open ended question about what is on the Internet - and by inclusion - what is on your site. The best way to answer that is to ensure that the content is written with the intention of a person reading it one day. Nobody would ever think of automatically generating AdWords text ads, instead, you would obsessively test and refine the language until your visitors are clicking through in good numbers. The exact same principles apply to organic SEO activities.
This brings me to the topic of automated SEO solutions. These generally take one of these forms:
- Automatic generation of meta information
- Automatic site submission
- Automatic link generation
- Automatic link requests
It's my belief that there are no free lunches in the SEO world, so forget the automation. And here's why I believe each of the above are of no use, or worse, have a negative effect.
Automatic Generation of Meta Information
The promise: The concept is attractive. Just let a program loose on your site content, and it will pick the keywords and stuff your meta tags with great content.
The problem: Apart from the fact that meta keywords simply don't matter anymore, keyword rich doesn't mean readable. Stuffing your title tag full of random keywords in a scattered pattern just makes your site look unprofessional, or worse, like one of those automatically generated AdSense arbitrage sites.
The fix: Just write good content, and carefully edit your page meta information to match the content. You want a branded, keyword-rich title, and a meaningful description. And page content that matches the promise of the title and description.
Automatic Site Submission
The promise: Use our software, and we'll automatically submit your site to a trillion* directories and search engines.
The problem: Mass site submission is not the key. A carefully selected and executed linking strategy is. There's really only about 3 or 4 sites and/or directories that everyone should be going for, and after that, you should be carefully choosing where to aim your link building efforts.
The fix: You're far better off with a small number of good, relevant, inbound links than 1,000 low value automated links to sites you've never heard of. Devise a link building strategy and work through it.
* OK, I made that up. But it's always a big number in the promises.
Automatic Link Generation
The promise: Just put your site Url into our software, and we'll have large numbers of links pointing to your site in no time.
The problem: Also known as bots: whether they be wiki-bots, comment-bots, forum-bots; any sort of software that is going to plaster a link all over the Internet is likely breaking all sorts of terms of service agreements.
The fix: Just don't do it. If you want to generate links for your site on wikis, forums and blogs, then go and add thoughtful and useful additions to the discussion. They won't get deleted and you won't get reported.
Automatic Link Requests
The promise: Using this software, you can automatically build up a large number of reciprocal links. We'll contact partner sites and set up reciprocal links with them and therefore improve your ranking.
The problem: Search engines wised up to reciprocal linking a while back, and now it's not nearly as beneficial as it once was. You don't need (and shouldn't have) a “links” page on your site with about 50 unrelated websites on it. And, to put it simply, you're spamming people using automated software.
The fix: If you want to attract quality inbound links to your site, then I recommend you do it with some old-fashioned person-to-person communication. You don't always need to email the webmaster, you could try posting a blog entry about the other site, and then hoping they'll return the favor. Or you could offer to write some content for them. There are many ways to do it: spamming by automated email rarely works.
What can you automate?
Not all automation is bad. Anything that is human-to-machine or machine-to-machine is a good candidate for automation. I often build automatic 301 redirect logic into software that I build, so that search engines can automatically update their search indexes. You can also automatically generate your xml sitemaps (although Tom would argue you should manually set all the priorities.)
There are also great SEO tools for checking rankings and generating keyword ideas. These are good to use for generating starting points to feed into your strategy. It's only when you are beginning to automate your entire strategy that you're unlikely to get good results.
What’s better done manually?
That's easy: everything else. All of your page content. All of your page meta information. All of your directory and search engine submissions (yes, all 4 or 5 of them.) All of your link building strategies. Even the internal links in your site’s html, code them up by hand so that they're formed properly. These should all be done by thinking about what will work best to achieve your goals, and then executing on a strategy. You're a person, and you're speaking directly to other people. Leave the bots to automated voice response systems and concentrate on delivering value.
Have you found yourself wondering about these “too good to be true” automated SEO offers or even fallen for some of them? Please add to the discussion by leaving comments below.
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