Wondering what would happen if someone made unbelievable videos which “edutained” and then wondering…. if they posted them on a website / blog…. and then wondering if they were so good…. so amazing, …. so helpful, people would link to the website by the thousands…. no… tens of thousands… and as I wonder, with hundreds of thousands of visitors because of the ten's of thousands of links….. would such a website / blog get searched for and found in search engines without keywords, meta descriptions and what else ? ah… meta-tag keywords. Creating something amazing and helpful for people in need (without the shock value)…. hmmmm I wonder. What could it be? A song? An opinion? A cartoon? A skit?….. A class?

But then in the very beginning of business / website start up where having one comment in a day is a time for celebration, one uptick in Alexa a sign of good fortune; no stone is left unturned … just in case, by chance… one meta description might offer a lead to put potatoes on the table for dinner, then meta it is.

Great post you have. Hopefully it will give people thinking about SEO a smaller W.A.D. to deal with. (Wonder And Doubt) Small WAD is better.

For me trying to optimize my websites has been like baking a cake, there's so many different elements involved and everybody seems to have their own unique twists.

However, thanks to resources like this it has made the process a lot easier.

The SEO/SEM fields exist in something like a cloud of mystery. It almost seems like an art form as it doesn't have clear operational checkpoints.

But…that is what makes it interesting!

Thanks!
MAS

Focus on the basic strategy first, such as those “set in stone” listed in the article. Then, give yourself some breathing room and research other strategies that will help your current campaign rather than hindering it. For instance, if you aren't getting traffic, don't change everything at once… change one thing and see what happens, like your title tags.

As for who can you trust, most optimizers aren't out to get you. In general, you can trust an optimizer to use strategies that have worked for them. Many clients ask for non-disclosure agreements, so getting references might be hard.

The main question to always ask is, “do you guarantee number one placement?” If they do, walk away – no one can guarantee number one placement without some serious blackhat techniques, which might get your site taken off the engines. Mainly, just do your research. Look up the company name with “scam” or “fraud” included in the search.