In case you aren’t married to a man who constantly refers to you as a Luddite, let me first explain what a Luddite is, all without going into any sort of intricate detail: it’s someone who doesn’t much care for things that make our lives easier, a person opposed to technological progress. That’s me, many times. It took me years to accept the mp3 format, I still don’t like to use remote controls, I never go through a drive-through, and my attempts to use the self-timer on my camera end up leading to shots of my backside as I walk away in order to get into position. It’s not that I hate these things really, it’s that I just don’t fucking care about them. Yes, they make things simpler, but I can’t be arsed usually.
This also applies to how I do SEO, in many instances. You know all of the blog posts where people talk about their favorite Firefox add-ons, or link building tools that they can’t live without? Have you ever seen my name on one of those? Hell no. I don’t use the Adwords API because I’d rather manually make changes, even though it takes me forever and the system crashes half the time on me. I don’t think that I have ever used any sort of coding software that writes even a fraction of the code for me, and I usually come up with new keywords based on nothing more than looking at a site and talking to a client (unless I’m instructed otherwise). So far it’s working out quite well…
I in NO way mean to say that using these types of tools is a bad thing; it’s just not as necessary as it might seem if you only took the sheer amount of online space devoted to SEO helpers into account. If you’re running a giant amount of PPC campaigns, you’d probably be quite stupid not to figure out some way to make things easier, obviously. The same holds true for link building…when you’re working on a massive link building campaign, it might really be nice to not spend all your time manually checking for contact information on each site. However, for a lot of us, the reliance upon things like this could mean that we’re becoming SEO tool operators, not SEO innovators.
Many times when you see a huge push in technology, you soon see the backlash. Can we thus expect to see a return to the old way of doing things, without a plethora of SEO tools that can do all of the grunt work for us? Admittedly, even WITH using these tools, there’s still a ton of grunt work involved in SEO, unless you’re lucky enough to have a masochistic underling who enjoys being whipped. Sadly, I don’t, as the advertisement for that position has not yet been publicly posted. Naturally I’ll be handwriting it and physically delivering it to all of the local papers for publishing…ok I’m off to churn butter and sing gospel songs now.
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I see you composing your blog entries in the Code, as opposed to Visual, tab, diligently typing out a hrefs and img srcs by yourself. And I see you doing so with two fingers, like my Dad.
Actually, it would be neat if everyone did that for a bit. The “typing out our own shit” thing, not the typing with two fingers. You have no idea how long I’ve sat looking at MSN Messenger while it says “David is typing a message.”
I had someone ask me the other day how to add a nofollow to a link. Come on; we really should know how to do these things like we know how to breathe in and breathe out. Especially if you’re me and you nofollow out of spite.
Also now good to know it’s okay to swear on SEO Chicks. Not sure I know why I ever doubted that.
Hmm. I’m not quite a luddite but I do sit in the middle of the SEO luddite spectrum. I have a ‘pimped’ out firefox with plugins that take up more screen real estate than is probabaly healthy.
That said I do have a strange fascination for spreadsheets and laboriously tracking link development in them - have tried using programs to do it for me (and they saved me time) but just couldnt get used to them (kinda like using windows Vista - yeah it may be great but where the f**k do I find half the stuff I want)
@Jane: I actually do that a lot…damn. I do type with more than two fingers though. Usually. And your nofollow point is an excellent one! There are so many basic bits of what we do every day, and a lot of SEOs have no clue as to how to do them. They just tell someone else to…not a good thing really. And please swear. I love swearing.
@Mr. Happy: I LOVE spreadsheets! OK I will stop before I become even more of a dork.
As long as you do not practice Bush style SEO, you are ok!
I agree, definitely think you can become a bit lazy and miss out on alot of learning if you totally depend on tools doing everything for you. Although I must admit like Mr.Happy I’m fully pimped up with Firefox add ons and SEO tools, but it’s only a handful I regularly use. I LOVE Aaron Walls new rank checker plug-in, it’s sweeeeeeeeet http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/
I LOVE spreadsheets, I’m more likely to use a few tools , extract information and make my own formula in a spreadhsheet and build on that. I think it’s crucial for SEOs to have their own theories on how “things” works, not just rely on “tools” to tell you how it is. You need to use your brain as well! No point in using loads of keyword tools for example if you don’t ALSO use your brain =)
I try to keep up with these things as I feel obliged to however, I still prefer to do my accounts on a spreadsheet (or god forbid, sometimes just plain old paper and pen) and I never trust the rank-checkers! At last, I can admit it…aahhh, that feels good!
As someone who works for a company that specialises in SEO tools, I should be appalled. But I still like the idea of Julie typing with two fingers.
/sits back and waits for “biggest SEO tools on the Internet” jokes/
@PoLR: write it on a placard!
@Jane: that would be too easy wouldn’t it?
@Hank Which doesn’t stop Stephen from doing it all the time
Jullie, Rebecca did a nice post about Digg!
“Bastards!”
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/digg-has-shoutblocked-me
I am glad to see the SEO industry taking on an advocate approach, instead of just being Google sheep!
To all SEO luddites - if your in Scotland give me a shout. I need some folk to taste whisky for a blog and SEO luddites seem exactly my target niche market.
I’m not in Scotland (bugger it), but that sounds like something I’d be very good at.
Mr Happy - if you are up to the challenge of making a whisy hater learn to like the taste then I know two takers (one’s a lad though, is that allowed)