Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

Danny wrote a very insightful article about SEO and web design in which he basically defends SEO as not being as shady, worthless, and criminal as many "pure" web designers are calling us. Danny makes several very good points in the article, including admitting that there are shady individuals in the industry, but that doesn't mean everyone who does search engine optimization is dishonest, scummy, or whatever. He closes by saying that anyone who paints the entire SEM industry as dirty crooks should buy into the following stereotypes:

• All car salesmen are crooks
  
• All lawyers are crooks
  
• Teachers teach because they can't do
  
• Bloggers don't check facts
  
• [Insert Race/Culture/Nationality Here] is [Insert Derogatory Comment/Stereotype Here]
  

I also like how Danny points out that most designers put a lot of effort into making sure their sites are properly rendered in IE and Firefox, yet many of them don't pay much attention to the "third browser"--the search engines. I think designers and SEOs need to understand the importance of a site that is well-designed for the user AND search engines. You can have the prettiest site in the world, but if nobody can find it, there's not a lot of value. On the other hand, if you have a site that gets a million visitors a month, but they all back out because they're afraid of the ugly flashing graphics, you're no better off.

I like the policy of moderation in all things--including web design and search engine marketing!