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Instant SEO Books of Bullshit

By Justin Parks | February 8, 2010

There is just so much Bullshit clinging to the sides of the SEO industry that it makes me want to scream but the real frustrating part is that the bullshit sticks and that for me is the major issue. I have people coming to me all the time asking for SEO services and “they read this book about it and it doesn’t seem so difficult” even though they have no idea where to begin (so much for the book) but because of this they think it should be 50 bucks under the table and problem solved.

People only hear three things when it comes to SEO and these are:

Frankly that’s exactly what they DO NOT want to hear as it all adds up to “expensive“.  No bullshit.  Most people want faster results at super cheap prices and instead prefer to spend serious amounts of time and waste silly amounts of money looking for ways to take advantage of the bullshit SEO vendors promises of wealth, fame and fortune if they just by a book and become an instant SEO master blasta and it goes a little something like this.

Instant SEO Books of Bullshit

“Sign up for only 25-99, reduced from 59-99!

Spread your name through our magic triangle of interlinked sites and gain exposure to hundreds of thousands of people with our amazing and highly reputable SEO system.

Analyse your site and fix all those SEO problems in seconds with one click and see your site at number one for some obscure keywords that no one ever types, but hell! At least it looks good!

Tell your friends and make them jealous so they buy this bullshit as well!”

This kind of crap is then followed up by a mangled list of crap testimonials and “certifications” from even more obscure bodies that are probably owned by the very same group or company and which they use to validate this super cool system.  Talk about third party and independent opinion?  Get real!  Why bother, no one in their right mind would put their name against this drivel.  no one real that is!  So what, lets just make it up!  No one checks this anyway and the promise of fast wealth is far to tempting.

Like doing a quick Google search for domain name ownership on WHOIS takes to much effort or taping in the name of the vendor and adding “are they legit” to the end wont bring back some type of opinion from another person or body who wont be afraid to tell they real story about this bullshit.  Sheesh!

Heres some more bullshit to chew on with these SEO books, lets dissect this bit by bit:

“Finally, A Powerful Set Of Search Engine Optimization Tools So Easy To Use That You
Will Blow By Your Competitors, Get Higher
Search Engine Rankings, & Make More
Profits Starting Today!…”

Right. So what your telling me here is that with this book I will kick ass and destroy all the competition, even though they may have the very same book and be doing what it says as well, word for word. Lets not forget the fact that the minute its released its out of date and also lets just assume for one second that every single website on the planet is exactly the same so this inane and bollocks strategy will work as well for companies that sell footballs as one that sells multi million dollar villas.

Aye Right.

“Master Resell Rights Included”

Oh right, that makes it ok then.  Thanks for that ya douche.

“The Search Engine Game
Has Been Exoposed And Is
NOW Wide Open!
Are you tired of spending loads of money trying to get search engine traffic?”

Right, here is the killer. This is the line that gets my blood boiling every single time and it just stinks of bullshit. In fact, for every intelligent person that reads this I’m not even gonna bother explaining just how much crap is in these four lines, it should be immediately obvious.

Maybe you’re just tired of spending hundreds of hours trying to tweak and change your site just right so that you can hope to get a decent ranking.

Your crap at this. Get over it and go do something your good at.

Truthfully, have any of this paid off in the way that you pictured they would?

Chances are, they haven’t but don’t fret because there is good news!

To find out how to start getting the rankings you want and deserve, read on…”

Well… if you have spent hundreds of hours tweaking your site and you are not getting a decent ranking then maybe you should stop feckin about and go and write some decent content that people may actually want to read, or alternatively, just give up, cause at this stage you must be completely useless. In fact, think about hiring someone who knows what they are doing and stop spending your money on this rubbish and wasting your life.

Bloody Hell.

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Topics: Snake Oil | 19 Comments »

Posted on 08 February 2010 by Justin Parks

Justin has extensive experience in the on line world having been involved in website design and creation putting businesses on line since 2001. Strategy implementation, project management, design, process, social media, seo, you name it he's done it.

has written 2 articles for SEO Bullshit

  • http://www.matthewsdiehl.com/ matthewdiehl

    These books are the result “Wham. Bam. Thank You Mam.” assholes who push online marketing as a turn key solution to “make millions on the Interwebs”. They deserve a steel-toed boot to the face.

  • http://www.goosh.co.uk/ Kev Strong

    You've hit the nail on the head. I've even gone into an multinational company to be told that their inhouse marketing team had “bought a book off Amazon to give it a go first” – at least they got something half decent as opposed to these SEO-affiliate driven peices of crap. They are about as useful and as common as “Earn free gold in World Of Warcraft” that you see on every site :(

  • http://twitter.com/@status=@LordManley Lord Manley

    I have had clients say that 'everything you have told us, we could have found that on Google!'. Well yes, maybe you could, but you'd have had to determine which was right and which was wrong and, most importantly, it would have taken you a very long time.

    I would not recommend a very small business employ an agency, they should go learn for themselves, but if you are a corporate giant then an agency is cheaper than the alternative, which is paying people to learn the trade, staff to provide best practise consultancy and others to build links and seed conversations.

    Yes you can learn to be an SEO, but then you could learn PHP at W3Schools, but you still hire developers, right?

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    They do indeed and I would do it for them at a reduced price, down from 49-99 to 5 bucks. See how nice I am?

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    They bought a book? Between them or one each? I wonder if I went to my doctor and said “I bought a book on the internet called Instant Doctor and I read it in two days. Technically I know more about this doctoring business than you do cause the book said so.”

    I wonder what he would say…

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    Dear God I really think people have lost the plot.

    I can learn a shit load of stuff on the internet, anyone can, of course, but will they have the time (and money) and the dedication to become any bloody good at it and how can they be sure its good…

  • http://www.making8seo.com/ Adam J. Humphreys

    The Art of SEO by Rand Fishkin/Eric Enge Oct 28, 2009, and SEO for Dummies Feb 2009 were both pretty good. However I've found that some things that were true earlier on in these books no longer hold true. Some books are good but that shelf life expires relatively fast.

    Honestly I think most intelligent entrepreneurs recognize the significance of investing in good results vs getting a 15 year old to manage their corporation. While I recognize it takes 2 minutes to put up a site, activate plugins, and theme it there's still the obvious fact that there's over 60,000 sites a day being created people have to go up against. People not intelligent enough to recognise this simply need to be educated about it. If they persist then let them fail, and go to their competition. It doesn't hurt us any. In fact the SEO bullshit if anything helps us as people make these spammy oldschool sites that we can easily out rank. High 5's to them for making life easier for us.

  • http://www.bliznet.com DBlizzard

    Justin, this is a poor analogy, I mean, being an SEO is much more difficult than being a doctor. No book required. All I need to be a doctor is a prescription pad, a pen with ink, and an illegible signature. As a matter of fact I could find what to prescribe….. if I use the Google :)

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    I just looked at my desk.

    Pen – Check
    Little writing pad – Check (Some fancy photoshop work will make that official)
    Illegible Signature- Check (Hell had that since day 1)

    Conclusion – Holy Shit! I'm a qualified and experienced Doctor! Now, tell me, where was it itchy again? :S

  • jimrudnick

    ABSOLUTELY spot-on Justin! Seen these long long scrolling pages with the highlighted yellow <spans> to prove that the cost is worth it for SEO newbies…and I've never ever understood how anyone gets conned by the bullshit they try to sell!!!
    :-(

    Jim

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    Thanks Jim, had to be said before my head exploded. I guess its the blind leading (or selling to) the blind really… by the way, have you seen my new book..(its on SPECIAL OFFER!!! Buy Now!!) :P

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    “In fact the SEO bullshit if anything helps us as people make these spammy old school sites that we can easily out rank.”

    There is definitely some wisdom in this statement Adam and I did think about this. But the issue is more about the lack of respect and the general misrepresentation that these books (and similar) cause is where the main issue lies with me and the crap we have to deal with on a personal and one to one basis with businesses and clients because of it.

  • paullopez

    lol…well said mate. don't forget SEO in simple…anyone can do it, apparently. Never forget one meeting I went to where he challenged evrything I said becuase SEO for Dummies, his new bible, did not mention that. By the time the book was written, edited, printed, distributed and then purchased..IT WAS OUT OF DATE!!

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    Hence the reason it was so aptly named “for dummies”. if the shoe fits… :)

  • http://www.making8seo.com/ Adam J. Humphreys

    You're absolutely right which is why we have to point out that there's also good people, and bad people in every industry. Results speak louder than words. People don't respect you for what you think you can do but by what you've done. It's up to us to drop the conjecture, and set the record straight.

  • http://www.goosh.co.uk/ Kev Strong

    Their team was small (3) and I believe two of them had read the book.

    In hindsight it was good because what I went in an told hem made sense to them in many respects – but it was more up-to-date, tested and tailored to their problem thus being much, much more valuable to them.

  • bentortora

    I guess at the end of the day the people that get burnt by these snake oil guys are probably the same people that are running a failing business (or their current model is tanking) and looking for anything to save them.

    What they don't realise, and what is probably the second biggest thing that is ruining this industry is that SEO and search traffic is the magic bullet to all your marketing and business needs.

    In my experience the people that are getting burnt are the same people that do not deserve to rank for their squeeze pages in the first place.

    Leaves the first page for those that deserve it and are getting quality advice

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    Very true Ben and an unfortunate truth at that.

  • http://twitter.com/martinstellar Martin Stellar

    Dude… that’s too funny! I knew there was a reason I liked you :) Good points too btw.