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I listen to the “undercurrent” in SEO circles, and Stompernet is often criticized, though typically just by inferrence.

This post is to address some of the things I see repeatedly online, especially among SEO bloggers, and hopefully it will offer some additional benefit to bloggers in other niches.

1. Bad Information

SEO information has a “sell-by” date – whilst there are many exceptions where content could be looked on as perrenial, what often happens is that a blogger will create a fresh post with new information, leaving the old information still indexed and bringing in visitors.

The problem is there is a network effect, especially if content is heavily promoted and referenced, on sites which take less care with updating their content.

There are a number of solutions

• Update old posts, possibly referencing new posts
• Update older posts, and then recycle them, something Michel Fortin does very well with his copywriting posts
• Create a new post or page, and then use redirects to transfer link equity or optimizing HTML  links

One glaring example is how many SEO, Marketing & Design blogs have recommended using Robots.txt for handling duplicate content. That article is now 18 months old, was widely read, yet the web is innundated with blog posts still suggesting using Robots.txt on category and other archive pages.

This is often on “authority content” that gets hundreds of thousands of views.

It could be looked on as criminal negligence especially if you are still actively promoting that content.

There are serious resource problems in updating content, but far better to refresh old content than have to constantly churn out fresh articles.

The biggest resource problem is updating video, especially if it is widely syndicated – recreating a series of screen capture videos every time WordPress has a major update is one of the reasons why I have never attempted to offer any basic tutorials — it becomes dated too quickly.

Last I heard Stompernet have a staff of 30 people working on creating content for their members and keeping it up-to-date – it is hard to compete.

I am going to be going back through my archives, pruning, redirecting & rewriting – I really hope other SEO blogs and even the major SEO forums do the same. There is too much junk out there.

2. Unique Information & Secrets

Whilst it is possible that some information is totally unique on the web, such as if you carry out extensive testing yourself, the vast majority of information on the web isn’t unique, and quite often there are 100 different answers to the same problems, from 20 different, even authority sources.

Look back at that and do the math.

I have seen 5 different answers to the same problem from the same expert author – which one is correct?

Sometimes it is possible to do a site search and work out which solution is the most current recommended solution, but quite often someone will take action on out-dated content.

Whose fault is that?

Oh but what do you care, the disclaimer on your website will cover your ass.

3. Refined Marketing Process

Have you noticed that Stompernet and other successful marketers typically launch their new or refreshed content in cycles?

• They get their sales funnel in place
• They refine their landing pages
• Add value to their free content ensuring it reinforces their marketing
• They have a marketing sprint and then close the doors (scarecity)
• They get a new wave of inductees that is easier to teach systematically

With this method they can ensure a cohesive marketing message, and that the material they provide is accurate at the time they release it. Incremental upgrades are still possible on content that is paid for, but it is vastly more complicated.

Offering Premium SEO Content or Tools?

SEO bloggers offering premium content unfortunately think the SEO benefit of the links they might gain from their premium content and possibly the traffic, but don’t think about their affiliates.

Are you going to provide deep linking capability for your affiliates to your next major piece of SEO or Marketing linkbait, with a refined sales funnel and launch process?

Offering an SEO Service?

All the recycling process still applies, and you can think about how you can periodically suck your sales prospects further down the sales funnel, possibly with coordinated webinars and free “live” site evaluations.

What is important to remember is “Results in advance” – if people benefit from your knowledge in a material way, they are more likely to open their wallets.

4. Kicking Your SEO Optimized Behind

I am not going to get into a debate whether the best information within Stomping The Search Engines 2 or Stompernet’s Elite membership is any better than what can be achieved by joining one, or several other membership sites, possibly once you sift through outdated information.

As I recently mentioned about prior knowledge and disclosure, I don’t join SEO training sites, though I am probably overly cautious. It is quite possible I might even disagree with some of their content – that would be a fun discussion.

That being said I have learnt a huge amount from the material Stompernet have provided over the years for free in various forms, and much of the published work of their faculty from 4 years ago could still be looked on at cutting edge.

Being able to recommend STSE2 allows me to avoid writing about basic SEO concepts, because it is the best introductory SEO course I have seen, and I have it siting on the desk infront of me, a review sample sent 6 months ago.

This isn’t blog tipping as such, because:-

1. I am being paid to do it
2. It is not the start of the month

That doesn’t however mean that the blog I am referring my readers to isn’t any good. In fact I have over the last few days spent a fair amount of time reading the content before writing this review, because I wanted to be sure that I was pointing you in the direction of quality information.

Shimon Sandler is a SEO Consultant – I am not his customer thus it is impossible for me to state whether he is a good SEO consultant or a bad one, other than reading his blog.

What impresses me is that he spells out exactly what he does, provides a detailed list of the things he looks to improve, which is certainly comprehensive, and he publishes his rates which based on my limited knowledge of the SEO Consultancy industry, seem to be very competitive indeed.

He has built up a fairly solid readership of over 600 readers subscribed to his RSS feed, though I have a feeling adding email subscriptions would have taken that to over 800.

You will see on his about page that he has worked with some fairly high profile clients in the past, so I expect he would be capable of handling most jobs, big or small.

The other thing I like about Shimon’s blog is that it seems to be pure information, rather than chatter about the next conference he might be attending or speaking at, or content intended to be linkbait without much substance.

You don’t need to buy a book on SEO, you could just start in Shimon’s archives and work your way through his content.

I think he probably needs to do a little more work on his SEO Basics category, or maybe move more content into it.
Actually to get the most from Shimon’s blog, you need to dig deep into his SEO category.

Shimon definitely knows a thing or two about link building, and also covers things like landing pages.

Whilst he isn’t advertising this as a service, I am sure he would be a good candidate to do a series of articles discussing ways to maximise the return from social media traffic.
There is currently a huge amount of information on how to game sites like Digg, and linkbaiting, but very little on how to convert that traffic in other ways, such as converting it to subscribers.

I would also like to see more articles, and longer articles, maybe using a related posts plugin to guide me (and the search engines) deeper into his content.

From what I have seen on his blog, Shimon has very broad knowledge of many aspects of online marketing, and depth where it counts.