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Comment by Intermernet | Hacker News Reader

Why The 9th Circle Is The Most Highly Skilled Sector in Hell - And How You Can Join Us

Really, I hate to say this, but SEO still has way too many dodgy players for many people I know to want to "join" it. If there are any Good SEO types (not sure how to define that) out there, can they please write some blog posts about why they should be trusted? Accept the fact that the industry has been blemished by snake-oil salesmen and try to fix it with truth, rather than PR.

I know, I sound angry, but I've seen companies waste tens of thousands of dollars on SEO and haven't seen much evidence of the other side of the coin. Please, convince me this is a valuable part of the web ecosystem!

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This is the reason many SEO companies have rebranded as content marketers recently.

Content marketing is a relatively easy sell, and it's almost the entirety of ongoing SEO work (as opposed to the technical improvements, which obviously you can't complete over and over again!).

Few businesses are interested in where the content comes from, the research that goes into setting it up, so it's content marketing for most of the larger companies. I like the broad skillset 'SEO' implies, though, so I thought I'd highlight that.

EDIT: Also I suspect that if you're on Hacker News, you'll be more likely to have a much more technical skillset that fetches a higher price in other niches than SEO. There is, of course, more to the world than marketing!

Hopefully the links and general tone get some people interested though.

"Few businesses are interested in where the content comes from, the research that goes into setting it up".

I think this is why it's an easy industry for dishonest players to exist in, and unfortunately it leads me to only really begin to trust the content on any business's site if it's being produced in-house, and even then it's always worth reading with a very critical eye.

Thanks for replying, I'm glad to hear that the content creation / marketing side of SEO is being rebranded, and I hope it means that the companies that are rebranding are doing so to separate themselves from those who would just seek to manipulate data, algorithms and people for short-term profit.

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