An SEO, Yesterday
In 1967, the Beatles fell under the spiritual influence of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. A gnomic font of Eastern wisdom, trailing a long white beard and dressed in simple robes he fit the role of ‘guru’ perfectly. Only when he started trying to bone members of the Beatles’ entourage in a decidedly less-than-holy way and suggesting that the Beatles renounce their worldly possessions (“cash”, to you or I) and more or less hand them over to him to spread his message did they smell a rat. Ringo got out quicker: his wife didn’t like the food.
SEO has it’s fair share of guru figures – people who can command high fees on the back of their reputation and whose every utterance is clung onto by a host of would-be acolytes. A lot of these reputations ain’t worth shit.
The main feature of a guru is the convergence of two things: an ostensibly compelling message and a great way of communicating that message (a third might be ‘great beard!’) At some point in our lives, we’ve all been convinced by a guru figure to accept some apparent truism or other. Normally this consists of wrapping up some complicated moral/financial/political system into a shiny, eminently quotable nugget. Think of “no-one ever got sacked for buying IBM”… “all you need is love”… “all political careers end in failure.” You could name a dozen more (three hundred and fifty-odd more if you have a motivational calendar).
Aphorism is a key weapon in the quest for guruhood. Lots of people might have the same message, but the person with the best quote wins. So it is with SEO.
“Big name” SEOs often come attached to some Grand Unified Theory or other – a defining phrase which they kind of lay claim to. It might be “linkbaiting” or “black hat seo” or “grey hat seo” or “strategic link building” or “it’s all about content” or “chase the long tail.” There are lots of variations, but once an SEO has developed an association with a phrase then there is a relatively well-worn path for them to tread. They don’t even have to really document what they are doing. Just cast out a few hints and let imagination do the rest.
Firstly, an inevitably, their blog becomes more central to their being. Although they’ve probably been blogging for months or years (often to help their clients, but shhhh – we won’t talk about that) they suddenly receive a namecheck from another guru. Instantly, their blog becomes A Hot Topic because it is seen that this person has An Angle. Suddenly, they are the name to drop into conversation. If you’re having a slow blogging day, you can check out what they are saying and write something along the lines of “Guru X had a great thought today…” as if you are really plugged in. Good writers, or course, thrive on this. Assuming that Guru X is a good writer, he can now conjure up more or less any thought and people will be ready to prostrate themselves before his wisdom.
At some point, this reputation leads to speaking duties or a high-profile move to a big SEO company or a “I’m setting up my own consultancy” moment, all of which causes a big flurry of excitable, gossip-page style speculation about what this all means for the industry. The blogging and the speaking become almost constant. Guru X is now an Industry Authority. If you want the best SEO, you’d better approach his firm.
Of course, chances are that Guru X isn’t actually doing the work any more. He’s too busy attending expos, getting photographed with other Gurus and blogging about how they shared a beer at SXSW and enjoyed a ’round table’. Meanwhile, the real work is getting carried out by acolytes – low level grunts picking up titbits from the master’s table while he’s gallavanting around the world or blogging in between dropping grapes into his mouth. Does it work? Who can say? By now, our Guru has to protect his client list. He can hint heavily that he is working on exciting new projects and that’s about it. Companies above a certain size are accustomed to throwing millions at advertising channels with uncertain results – and SEO just fits into that picture so what does anyone care? It’s an endless circles of self-justifying activity: I can command $180,000 fees therefore I must be good. We can afford high fees, therefore we must be buying the best.
But at some point, these figures enter a rarefied world where if their advice doesn’t pay off they can actually accuse the client of failing: “you’re not spending enough… your positioning isn’t right and SEO can only offer you so much… your company is too generic… your branding isn’t strong enough…. you haven’t got a niche…”
By now, our much-vaunted SEO Guru has basically become a Business Consultant in SEO clothing. And let’s face it, anyone with half a brain can say “your product is too expensive”. The only difference is that some companies will pay a Guru any sum of money to hear that – and they are probably exactly the same companies who would ignore the same advice from an internal team member.
So why does all this matter? Primarly because a lot of successful SEO is actually market-specific fluke. In one field, the competition might be incredibly weak. Google might decide, apropos of nothing, that your site deserves to rank highly for non-algorithmic reasons. Your competitors might all be engaging in a spam war and suddenly plummet en-masse when their cheating is uncovered. BUT! Once an SEO has achieved success in one field, he falsely attributes that solely to his skill in a kind of low level confirmation bias.
If he has any nouse, he’ll soon turn that into the first step towards guruhood. But only if he can think of catchy nickname.
