In a recent ‘rant’ post  titled “Your B2B site doesn’t need more freakin’ words” the topic of content creation was discussed.  The basic premise of the post, and you should definitely read it for yourself, was that SEO’s out there are still working on formulaic SEO writing strategies that include word counts, frequency (as in regular blog posts), and keyword  phrase density, and that they shouldn’t be.

She, the author (Heather Lloyd-Martin), kindly points out that “Google doesn’t give a sh!# about your word count. Nor does it care how many blog posts you upload a week. And it really doesn’t care about keyword density.” Very well put! But…I do think that there’s probably a good “formula” for writing good SEO content and that word count, keyword density, and content publishing frequency probably do factor in, but the point is that you should just concentrate on writing the best content you can. Point agreed with!

Having said that, the whole post made me think about my own little rant…

Is Google really being fair in all this?

I mean really, most SEO’s are just doing what they CAN to get results within Google’s system. They’re trying to get results for their clients. SEO’s don’t pull these ideas out of thin air. It’s what SEOs have been doing for years. Building links, creating content with keywords, H1s, blah blah blah. And sure, some do try to ‘work’ the system, but frankly Google has created the “SEO monster” that it’s constantly trying to beat. Is THAT fair? Google says “this is what works”, then turns around and says NOW this is what works, and what worked before doesn’t, and if you did what worked before we’re going to punish you for doing it…even though it was good to do it back then. Then we’re all like “WHA?!!”.

Over the years…  Keywords are super important so we put lots of keywords in content and in meta tags. Meta data, meta data, and meta data.  H1’s and H2’s…you have to do that or else! The URL is super important so we buy awesome domains with keywords in them, like www.search-engine-optimization.com or www.moz.comSite interlinking. Anchor text. Links are super important, because of PageRank, so folks find ways to mass produce links over the years. Dynamic content is super important so now we’re all focused on creating content to the extent that the quality of content has to be going down. Holy shmokes!

AND THEN GOOGLE CHANGES ITS MIND AGAIN.

Is that really fair? Would it be fair for IRS to change its tax code and then punish me for all the times I violated the new law in the past? No. And they wouldn’t. But, alas, we’re not talking about law or government. We’re talking about a company that has the right to do whatever it wants, and if you don’t like it then stop using them. Stop being an SEO.

Is Google really being fair?

IT DOESN’T MATTER!

Google’s gonna keep changing and we’re going to have to keep learning.

Seriously, I want to hear your thoughts. I’m whining big time here, but do you ever get frustrated by this endless change?