Optimize the page and not the site!
Today, I conducted an email marketing workshop-training for a certain group of marketers who somehow are not really into using online platforms as their means of engaging to their markets. It was fun and at the same time, tiresome because it seemed that I was blabbing on a concept that they have not “bought” yet to be part of their marketing mix. There were a lot of hesitations and frustrations on their part having heard of their suggestions and comments which I found to be valid though for some.
Honestly, I am a disruptor by nature as I always try the not-so-traveled path (or never been traveled) leading to a goal that was never been achieved in the first place. At that, I have always expected scrutinies and criticisms to a certain extent. It is normal I would say. But then, I also expected some people who somehow buy the idea because they have that natural instinct of wanting to do something new in their daily routines and of doing something worthwhile given the feasibility of such concept.
I also talked about SEO or search engine optimization to substantiate a certain module of the workshop. Actually, it was only meant to give my audience a crude idea of what SEO is all-about. But then the funniest thing during the seminar was all-about a certain claim of one of audiences about search engine optimization. The guy seems to be making a point not about the SEO as a subject matter but rather about his prowess in SEO (gulp!) thus the parade of what I have’s and I did’s sprouted like wildfire.
Admittedly, I was really surprised because the guy seemed to be at lost of what he has been doing all these time. I bluntly disagreed to some of his claims such as optimizing the site and not the page, we can rank number one in the keywords like casino and poker and other ‘universal keywords” as the guy insisted. That even a 100usd budget spend can make our company’s site to rank number 1 in Google!
I frankly did say that we cannot do those claims and we need to be real given the variables we have. I was just being real. PERIOD.
But then the guy made claims of “huge proportions of his achievements “and all. OMG! In the IT world, anyone who behave as such is doomed to fail. Indeed.
In short, I basically disagreed and continued with my lecture on SEO (SEM Philippines) not minding what the ” lost guy is talking about” and up to the point of going through the session of reviewing a flash site. And here, the concept of accessibility, usability and searchability played well during the workshop.
I mentioned indirectly that there are people who always feel that coming up with animations on their websites will suffice enough to be considered “cool and great” even up to the point of getting their sites like “chopsuey menus” just to get those unwanted animations “tick-tacks” on their sites. And oh! the inclusion of audios and the minimum of 3-mins site loading which is really annoying. I did not mention already during the seminar that such design/development style (those that I mentioned) were so 90′s when notepad programming reigned supreme those days.
Honestly, I could not claim that I am the best of what I do especially on search engine marketing because there are hundreds of guys out there who really kick ass in the SEM industry/field however; if even the basics of SEO are being opposed then that is another story. Would you agree?



August 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 am
I agree, better optimize the page than the site and it is easy to rank the page than the site, in my personal experience.
Wow SEO training. I wish there’s similar kind of training here in our city.
Keep up the good work.
August 4th, 2009 at 2:31 am
If the dynamics of basic SEO cannot be understood, how much more SEM? The SEMS would run out of business kung $100 lang budget ng client…LOL
August 14th, 2009 at 11:32 am
ok, you caught my attention with the design pointers. when is the next training? i might be able to spare some time for it.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I will let you know.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Sir Gary, you should have told the guy “that’s why they call it PageRank and not SiteRank” or ” it’s Search Engine Results Page and not Search Engine Results Site”
sir Gary, please do invite me in your training.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Kindly give me a copy of your slide presentation? Nosebleed hehe
September 6th, 2009 at 8:45 am
uy! makinig ka na lang ulit pag meron tayong seminar.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
The page should be optimized and not the site.
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
This is an old post that I have stumbled while surfing the net but the article is ok. As I was reading the article I laughed at the $100 company budget when it comes to SEO.
To clear it up, Web hosting packages nowadays, range from $35 to $50 depending on what kind of package you took. Then you still have to pay your web marketers which is around $750 to $1500.
Anyways, yes, it’s true. As web marketer, it is easier to optimize a site. However, to be able to have a successful campaign, it’s best to optimize all the pages of your site.