Looks like Neil is doing an OK job so far of increasing the search traffic to Calacanis.com over the past two weeks. He's only been able to push about 10% of the changes he wants to do to the Blogsmith software (the amazing software my blog runs off of--and that we sold to AOL) and my blog, but the results are solid so far: a 21% increase according to Niel.
Now, we don't know that this result is:
a) sustainable
b) because of the changes he made
I could be going up because Google likes my site more because so many folks have been linking to me in the past month. The Fatblogging.com (TM) movement and the payperpost wackos have both sent me hundreds of links during the same time period. Thoughts on this Neil?
That being said, I think Neil will be able to increase my traffic when he does all of his changes, and my position has always been that ALTHOUGH SEO can work in the short term it is NOT a good long-term strategy. The best long term strategy is to just make great content in my mind--BUT I COULD BE WRONG.
All of these changes Neil makes would have cost me $10-20,000 in consulting fees with an SEO firm from what I understand (correct me here if I am wrong), and these kind of changes do NOTHING for the reputation of you site. They get you a quick, free hit of traffic.
If you're a site owner I still maintain you're better off putting that $10-20k into hiring a great writer to do original research, video, audio, photos, services, etc. to help people.
All that being said.... I must admit that the SEO crack hit feels good. I can't wait to smoke the rest of Neil's SEO crack and watch my stats go through the roof for things like HIIT training and HDMI cables--of course, it makes me feel very, very dirty.
Neil: You said you would explain the changes... would you do a followup post about the two or three changes you made and why they worked? Also, I'd love to hear Google, Ask, Yahoo and Microsoft search folks comment on what we're doing.
This is an important discussion for our industry and I thank Neil for taking the time to explain his changes and educate me. Also, thanks for the Blogsmith team--Gavin, Alex, and Brian--for helping out. Side note/Plug: Alex and Gavin has an amazing side project called Emurse.com that I'm hoping they ask me to join the board of if they ever blow it out.
Now, we don't know that this result is:
a) sustainable
b) because of the changes he made
I could be going up because Google likes my site more because so many folks have been linking to me in the past month. The Fatblogging.com (TM) movement and the payperpost wackos have both sent me hundreds of links during the same time period. Thoughts on this Neil?
That being said, I think Neil will be able to increase my traffic when he does all of his changes, and my position has always been that ALTHOUGH SEO can work in the short term it is NOT a good long-term strategy. The best long term strategy is to just make great content in my mind--BUT I COULD BE WRONG.
All of these changes Neil makes would have cost me $10-20,000 in consulting fees with an SEO firm from what I understand (correct me here if I am wrong), and these kind of changes do NOTHING for the reputation of you site. They get you a quick, free hit of traffic.
If you're a site owner I still maintain you're better off putting that $10-20k into hiring a great writer to do original research, video, audio, photos, services, etc. to help people.
All that being said.... I must admit that the SEO crack hit feels good. I can't wait to smoke the rest of Neil's SEO crack and watch my stats go through the roof for things like HIIT training and HDMI cables--of course, it makes me feel very, very dirty.
Neil: You said you would explain the changes... would you do a followup post about the two or three changes you made and why they worked? Also, I'd love to hear Google, Ask, Yahoo and Microsoft search folks comment on what we're doing.
This is an important discussion for our industry and I thank Neil for taking the time to explain his changes and educate me. Also, thanks for the Blogsmith team--Gavin, Alex, and Brian--for helping out. Side note/Plug: Alex and Gavin has an amazing side project called Emurse.com that I'm hoping they ask me to join the board of if they ever blow it out.
