How Much Time and Energy Should I Spend on SEO

[davidcubed]

I recently listened to a few people at a conference say that spending time on SEO is kind of silly as Google can often be better at figuring out what your site is about better when you don't mess around with SEO, and that the rewards don't justify the time spent.

Basically, he said that if you have the best site in the world, Google will figure that out, or it is not doing its job.

How much time do you spend on SEO, and why? Have you truly seen amazing results from spending time on it over creating new content or selling ads?

Which elements of SEO take the least amount of time and provide the best results?

[chrisgarrett]

Keyword research has an excellent ROI.

There is foundation stuff, fixing broken stuff, but then it is mostly links.

It's been like that a while.

There are some people still out there on the bleeding edge but will tell you, I have been privy to some advanced SEO conversations over the years and things have changed a great deal from when the technical SEO guys would go into PHD mode, there is a good reason why even the top SEOs all have blogs.

I think broadly speaking the advice you were given is correct

[davidcubed]

We definitely need a thread on how to do keyword research.

It was Matt Mullenweg that basically said that Google is smarter than we all think, and that SEO can cause negative effects. It was very interesting to hear.

[chrisgarrett]

Ah, well Matt has a shaky history with SEOs so I still wouldn't buy into it *entirely*

[chrisgarrett]

http://www.copyblogger.com/keyword-research/ is a good place to start

[deb_n]

I hate keywords. Absolutely hate them. I hate writing around them and figure out which to use. With that said, if I didn't have a keyword in the title of my blog, I doubt I would be number one in that search term.

[ahmed]

I like Matt's work but I don't trust his thought process one bit - he's too black and white, and when he takes sides he tends to be, umm, puritanical (not sure if that's the right usage but anyway).

bad SEO is negative. good SEO is about helping Google know your site better.

If your site has little or no SEO, then getting the basics right will give you a quick and permanent boost. If you've already done considerable SEO on your site then raising rankings becomes progressively difficult.

Getting the basics right is a quick and simple process. Also very effective is guest blogging and getting link backs through those posts. Linkbait (the kind done for links, not for votes) is quite effective too.

[jeffc]

If you concentrate all of your effort with being as relevant as possible to a specific subject, SEO will take care of itself.

These three tips generally sum up my thoughts and feelings regarding SEO.

http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/three-golden-rules-of-seo

If you happen to read that article, you'll owe me $50,000.00 as a consulting fee.

[bradleclerc]

If you happen to read that article, you'll owe me $50,000.00 as a consulting fee.

Would you take a seriously post-dated cheque? :P

[jeffc]

Would you take a seriously post-dated cheque?

How about an IOU