The SEO Quality Test

Someone at work handed me an article today about measuring SEO success. Does that mean I should brush up my resume, knuckle down and work harder, or just roll my eyes and sigh heavily because yet another sales guy doesn’t get it?

Some of my current responsibilities include training staff in advanced SEO theory (including things I’m not permitted to write about on this blog) and interviewing job applicants to determine their grasp of SEO fundamentals and occasional theory.

I’ve watched job applicants melt into their chairs when I start asking them about SEO. Am I that frightening or are they just not sure of why they decided to apply for a job that includes “knowledge of SEO”? You know the interview will be short when you say, “Um…” after I ask, “So how much search engine optimization do you know?” You may be sitting in front of me solely because your resume does indicate you have SEO skills.

I have watched some of the nicest-seeming folks fail that test, and I really do wish for their sakes that “I don’t really know but I’d be happy to learn” was the right answer. I remember when I said that once myself. I believe I ended up melting into my chair in that interview, and I didn’t get the job either (lucky me — years later I found out what it would have entailed and I would have hated it).

I probably should not do this, but here are a few things that will strip you of all value as a potential SEO in my eyes. Keep in mind that this is just my persnoal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of my current employer, past employers, future employers, or anyone else. It’s my opinion. Feeding these answers back to me will make you look suspiciously like someone who came to my blog to prep for a job interview.

What is SEO? Please don’t say, “That’s where you build links to a Web site so it ranks well.” Nope. That is called link building.

Definition: Search engine optimization is “the art of designing or modifying Web pages to rank well in search engines”.

How do you judge the value of a link? Please don’t say, “I see what PR the link has.” First of all, links don’t have PR. Links pass (internal) PageRank (sometimes). Secondly, you have no way of knowing how much PageRank a link is going to pass. And when I say PageRank, I ain’t talking about that stupid 0-to-10 number the Toolbar shows you.

Technically, there is no real “right” answer to the question, but there are a lot of wrong answers to it and many of them include “PR”. In fact, all the answers that include “PR” are wrong in my book. That doesn’t mean I won’t hire you. It just means that if I do hire you you’re in for a whole lot of re-edumacation.

What do you think of the latest/last Google update? Whatever you do, don’t say, “Well, I lost all my rankings….” Look, I lose a few rankings in every update, but all of them? I don’t think so.

Which SEO forums do you read? Probably a safe answer is, “What is an SEO forum?” However, since I myself have been known to read SEO forums, it’s okay to name some as long as you don’t start naming your favorite posters or say, “And I learned a lot about PageRank there.”

Trust me: no one learns a lot about PageRank in any SEO forum. Absolutely no one.

How long have you been doing SEO? Be prepared to answer this question with a time frame in … oh, I don’t know. Days maybe. Months would be good. Years is almost always beneficial (unless you’ve already shot yourself down with PageRank and PR — I only have so much tolerance for the unteachable). I know I make you nervous, but please don’t start out with, “Um….”

If you’re looking for my help in a forum (and for some strange reason, people no longer ask for my help in forums), please don’t start out with: “My site is 3 years old, PR of 5, has good backlinks, and great content optimization.”

If you’ve got all that going for you, why are you asking for help in an SEO forum? Yes, good sites can tank because of technical reasons — but no one needs to know what your morning reading habits are. Please keep your PR to yourself. And as for “good backlinks”, “quality backlinks”, etc. — leave that out because if you really do have an SEO problem, who do you want your advice to come from: someone who takes the time to check your backlinks or someone who says, “Hey, just build more links”?

Don’t even try to argue with me on that one because there is only one right answer.

How would you optimize a Web page? This is a critical question because most people fail it. If your answer begins with or includes the expression “meta tags”, you’re in trouble. Do meta tags have a place in SEO? Yes, but meta tags are so not on-page optimization.

How many Web sites have you designed/optimized? If I ask this question I’m looking for experience. If the answer is “none”, we’re going to have to work on our communication skills. How on Earth can you be an SEO if you haven’t even optimized one site? I can see someone who wants to learn how to do it saying “none” — I’ll hire a beginner when I have an entry-level opening. But I have seen people pop into forums who have decided that now is the time for them to become SEOs and — oh, would anyone mind explaining how to do it?

You lose big points if you have no experience and you call yourself an SEO.

As of today, I am formally declaring that anyone who has not optimized five Web sites so that they each achieve at least one top ten ranking for at least one keyword other than the business/site name is not an SEO. There may be people out there who have optimized 500 sites, but if you have done 5 I’m good with that. You’re in.

There are other things I look for, things that experienced SEOs say (and they usually say these things often) that newcomers and half-hearted practitioners of the art never say. You can usually tell when someone has just begun to say the right things because they are still mixing in some of the wrong things (especially PR). There are old hands in the field who can get away with talking about PR. They can tell you how to build it. They can tell you if a PR 0 probably means something or not. They can tell you that it won’t matter for your rankings. They don’t have to lecture you on the evils of talking about PR — most of them leave that to me anyway.

Experienced SEOs know they have limits but they don’t talk about those limits. They speak with confidence about what they can do, about what they do do, and about what they can help you with. They don’t always have to be right. I’m not always right so I certainly don’t expect anyone else to always be right.

It’s not about being right. It’s about being honest. You lose points with me if you talk about PR and wait for me to correct you before you say, “I know it’s meaningless but everyone else talks about it.” Didn’t your mother ever ask you if everyone else was jumping off a cliff would you do that too?

And it’s not that I’m obsessed with PR. It’s that everyone else is obsessed with it. So just because I’m PRanoid doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t talking about it. People still talk about DMOZ, too, but how many people think it’s a useful SEO resource any longer? For that matter, even DIGG is starting to take some heat from SEOs (or, I should say, link builders — my apologies to all SEOs but you know how rude I can unintentionally be).

So let’s be honest. Your opinion of what makes a good or great SEO may never agree with mine. I can live with that. I hope you can, too.

But if you want to know why I roll my eyes at some people who say more than they should on the subject of search engine optimization, these are some of the reasons I have for doing so. I’m sure some of them could reciprocate, but like I said: I stopped playing the reciprocal licks game years ago.

And I don’t do reciprocal links, either. I want only quality links.

I can’t believe I said that….