Grumpy SEO Guy (0:00)

This is Grumpy SEO guy. Episode 99, what you should know about the SEO industry. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because of the way the SEO industry is. So just a reminder before we get started, new episodes are released on Wednesday at 9am Central Time, but only the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, it's going to be a little bit after that. If you're watching on YouTube and you have a question or something, I try to respond to questions that same day, but sometimes it's not until Thursday, sometimes. So anyway, thank you for commenting on my YouTube videos. And for those of you watching this on YouTube, please like and subscribe in today's episode. We're just gonna talk a little bit about the SEO industry. Like, some of you might know this already. Maybe you've heard me discuss this before and that's cool, but I just feel like sometimes there's new people listening to this podcast and I feel like they are going to feel like knowing what's going on in the industry. So, look, but before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical. And based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. The SEO industry is. Is not like other industries. So in. In specific industries, you've got requirements for entry. Okay? For example, if you're an electrician, you can't just. You can't just claim that you're an electrician. Okay? You have to have a certification. Okay? If you're a lawyer, you can't just be a lawyer. You have to have passed the bar, okay? Which is a test that allows you to be a lawyer. If you're a doctor, you can't just mention that you're a doctor. You have to actually have a degree in medicine to be a doctor, okay? But with SEO, you can just say you do SEO. We call this a no barriers to entry industry, okay? It means anybody who wants to can say they do it. So that person who tells you they're an expert, they are an SEO expert. They may actually be an SEO expert, or they may just have started doing SEO today. You can't tell. You can't tell. So that's why in the previous episode, I told you to always request specifics, because a lot of people will just tell you, oh, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, and it sounds good. And you presume that they're an expert because they said they're an expert. They' an expert. They're just some grifter on the Internet trying to make money in the SEO industry. That is the SEO industry. There's no. It's. It's murky, okay? There's no. There's no standards anywhere. There's no certification. Although some people will try to sell you an SEO certification, but it doesn't mean anything because it's just from some arbitrary company or service or website that says, well, we have certified you as knowing SEO, but that there's no reason for that, because if the certification doesn't come from a search engine, it doesn't mean anything. And by the way, search engines are unlikely to create certifications for SEO because the purpose of SEO is manipulation. And why would a search engine support you in manipulating the results? Think. Why would that ever happen? That's not gonna happen. So any certification, even if somebody's like, oh, I have an SEO certification, it doesn't mean any. It doesn't mean anything. There's no reason to have it. It doesn't mean anything. I know I said that many times, but it doesn't mean anything, okay? So anyway, that's the SEO industry, okay? It's very. It's very like anyone can do anything they want. There's no degrees, okay? You can't go to university. As far as I know, you can't go to university and study SEO, and, like, that's your major, okay? Now, to be fair, somebody did tell me that they were taking an SEO class, which is. Which is cool, I guess, but, like, you can't get a degree in SEO because again, who would create the criteria? The search engines are the ones that are making the rules. They're not going to make a degree that you can get. They're not going to confirm you as being good at SEO, because the purpose of SEO is to change the rankings and they don't want people to, you know, be aware that this is possible. So there's, there's no degrees. Like, you. You're not gonna meet somebody who's like, oh, I have a degree. I mean, okay, look. You look. I have no clue what's gonna happen in the future. Like, maybe, but, like, I doubt it. Like, oh, I have a degree in SEO. And even, okay, look, even if that was a thing, SEO changes somewhat often, right? I know I say that we've been doing pretty much the same thing for 15 years, but you have to take that into context because there are things you can't do anymore. And the general recommendations that I share on this podcast are don't do too much of anything. Like, so, for example, we've talked about over optimization. Over optimization is when your backlinks use the same anchor text too often. All right? Anchor text is the words that make up the backlink. So, like, whatever the link says, all right, there is your anchor text, okay? So if you're trying to rank for blue widgets, and while you're making backlinks, like 90% of them are, are blue widgets, that's over optimization. That's going to get you a. Well, it's possibly going to get you a penalty. And by the way, hold on, side note, because I see this question come up a lot. Just because you do something that might cause a penalty doesn't mean you will get a penalty. Just FYI. So anyway, that's over optimization. I would recommend not doing it, first of all, because it's a bad idea. But second of all, even when it did work, because that's doing too much of a method, okay? So the people who did not over optimize never got penalties when over optimization, like, created penalties. Okay? So my point is SEO changes, right? So even if somebody has a degree in SEO, that doesn't mean in six months they will know how to rank a website. Because that means they learn what if one day the algorithm isn't the same anymore and then you don't know how to do SEO anymore. Like that. By the way, that happens all the time. If you ever pay attention to any of the SEO forums, like whenever there's a big algorithm update, people like, lose the. They're like, oh my gosh. Oh. And they always get mad at Google, like, right? Like Google's just trying to make the algorithm look, say whatever you will about Google. Google is feasibly just trying to have an algorithm that produces the best results because that will keep people using them. Okay, if Google, We've talked about this too. If they were to serve bad results, people would stop using them. And if people stop using them, they will no longer be able to make money from advertisements. Okay, so Google's purpose is to give you good results, so you continuously use them. Okay, so algorithm updates are just search engines trying to give you preferable results. Now, sometimes people disagree with that. That's okay, that's fine. But people always become very mad when there's an algorithm update, because usually they're like, oh, my SEO tactics did not work anymore. Oh, I lost all my ranking. Like, that's. I don't know what to say to that. Like, okay, so the game changed again, which has been happening all the time since the beginning of SEO. Anyway, Anyway, nobody's gonna have a degree in it because that would happen, right? Can you imagine? You finish university and you've got your SEO degree and. And then all of a sudden the standards change and you're. And the stuff that they taught you doesn't work anymore. How annoying would that be? It is probably unlikely that there will be an SEO degree. I don't know, maybe I could Google it now and see if it exists. But anyway, I have no idea, guys. I have no idea. But my point is, the SEO industry is just this crazy, muddy thing where like, nobody knows really what's going on. Nobody is trustworthy. They might be trustworthy or they might just be trying to sell you some stuff that doesn't make any sense at all. They might be trying to get you to buy a course. They might be trying. I've heard of people, for example, provide. Okay, do you guys remember the helpful content update, right? Like a year ago, Helpful content update, which, by the way, had nothing to do with the content on your website as far as I understand. But everybody went insane and they were like, cause you need good quality content. Meanwhile, grumpy SEO guy has been telling you that quality of content has no effect on ranking. And it doesn't. But anyway, so this helpful. So this helpful content update. Do you know what happened? People started offering site audits for helpful content update. What a waste of money. Unless maybe you have like a keyword stuffing penalty and then changing the content removes that keyword stuffing penalty. But that's not. First of all, it's not even what helpful content Means. So whatever, Whatever. But there's people. Oh, helpful content update. Oh, I'm gonna scam people by selling helpful content update audits? And then what? It doesn't do anything. I bet you nobody who bought one of those. I hope nobody did, but I bet you if anybody bought one of those audits, whatever changes they were told to make didn't do anything because. Wait for it. Content's not a ranking factor. But that's the SEO industry, okay? People selling you garbage that's not gonna do anything because somebody told them that it might work or because they think that they can get you to pay money for it. FYI, that's the SEO industry, okay? The SEO industry is full of people that are more than happy to take your money and sell you garbage backlinks or write you bad content or tell you that content will make you rank when it won't. And just to clarify that, if you're just starting to listen to grumpy SEO Guy, people think that content is a ranking factor. There's a saying, content is king. And they believe that if they can write good content, they will rank better. But content quality is not a ranking factor. There are numerous websites on the Internet, probably yours included, with great content, that don't rank. And the reason they don't rank is because you do not rank because you have good content. Okay? So I just. People think this, and then they meet with you in their SEO meetings, and they're like, we're gonna write you really good content, and it's gonna make you rank. And, like, people that don't grasp how SEO works are like, oh, that sounds like a good idea. But then nothing happens. And then six months later, after they've been writing content for six months, right? Cause usually locked into a contract for six months or 12 months or whatever, anyway, and then at the end of six months, they're not ranking any higher. Because you want to know why? Because content's not a ranking factor. And that wasn't going to make you rank higher anyway. And then they're like, well, sign another contract and we'll write you more content. And then people just keep doing that, and then they walk away and they have a terrible opinion of the SEO industry, and they should, because that's the SEO industry, okay? Like, by the way, that's why I made this podcast. Like, because I'm trying. People grow on PSEO Guy, why are you making this podcast? Because I want to clarify all of this confusion and just ridiculous garbage that exists. Oh, content is king. Oh, backlinks. Don't matter. Oh, site speed is a ranking factor. Oh, you know, meta keywords is important. Like, no, none of those things are true. None of them are true. But people will sell that knowledge to you because they either don't know better or they think it works. They think that it's actually helpful. You know, I gotta be truthful though. Like, some of the people in the SEO industry that are, that are offering bad advice for money do actually think it's true. Like, it's kind of, it's kind of challenging to tell the difference between an outright grifter and somebody who actually thinks it's true. But regardless, I'm not saying the person that is telling you content is king when you pay them money is totally trying to scam you. He might actually believe that content is king, or he might just know that telling people content is king sells. So I don't know. That's why you should discover how SEO works on your own. And then you will be able to cut through the nonsense, which is, I think what I say in the intro to the podcast help you cut through the nonsense or cut through the confusion anyways. So cut through the confusion because it's full of confusion. That's the SEO industry. So then on the, on the reverse end of the spectrum, you've got like actual agencies. And I just want to say, like, like people that have a, people that aren't working from home, like people that work for SEO companies that have physical locations somewhere. Some, you know, in, in a, in a, in an actual, like they have, they have an actual space where they do the things right? Like a company, like you walk into a company and they, and they have a lobby and you know what they, you know what I mean? Like, like it's a thing. So that's, that's the, that's the other kind of SEO agency that exists. That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean they're good. I have talked to a lot of those agencies and I've gone to their parties. I mentioned this earlier in another episode and I've in some cases had meetings with their CEOs and like, guys, just because they have a fancy location with high tech looking stuff doesn't mean you're good SEO. But it means you charge a lot of money so you can be able to afford all those things. But some of those agencies are content as king agencies and they don't cause their clients to rank. So guys, this is the SEO industry. I'm not saying don't do SEO. So let's Be very definite about some things. SEO actually exists. SEO is the process of getting websites to rank higher in the search engines. We've been doing it for 15 years, and I share with you for free how to do it in this podcast. Okay, so it's an actual thing because people are like, SEO is not real. Like, oh, okay, like. Like, how does make any sense anyway? But. But it's. It's real. It's a thing because you can make websites rank higher and you can make websites rank lower. So it's a thing. But anyway, I'm just saying kind of like, pay attention to some stuff and make sure that the person that you're talking to that you're thinking about doing business with seems like they might actually grasp the concept of SEO, because a lot of them don't, and a lot of them just repeat nonsense that isn't right and doesn't even make any. It's just. It's just. Have you ever caught somebody in a contradiction? Like, catch. Feel free to catch SEO people in contradictions, right? If they're like, backlinks, don't do anything. And then like, five minutes later they're like, well, maybe you've got some shady backlinks. Well, hold on, dude, because you just mentioned five minutes ago that backlinks don't do anything, and now you're saying we're having problems because we have shady backlinks. Hmm. That's just an example. Anyway, that's what I have to say. I don't like the SEO industry, which is the other reason I make this podcast, because it's terrible. Like, it's actually terrible. It has a very. Most people have a very bad opinion of the SEO industry. And they should. They absolutely should, because it's full of shady people and it's full of nonsense and it's no barriers to entry. So literally anyone in the world, the shadiest of the scammy, can save their SEO experts and take your money. So I hope you listen to Grumpy SEO guy. So please try to understand to the highest degree you can how SEO works before you hire these people to do your SEO. In conclusion, the SEO industry is murky, but if you get good SEO, it's probably worth it because, like, you'll be at the top of the search engines, and hopefully that will help you solve whatever problem you're having. I don't know. Anyway, thanks for listening to the podcast. I hope you find this podcast useful compared to the other things that talk about SEO on the Internet. And that's the end of this episode. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder. And it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about a description of the episodes we've published as of today.