There always seems to be someone, somewhere trying to prove that SEO is unnecessary, or that they can do better without it. I told you the other day about all the newsletters I receive in the name of keeping myself well-informed. The newlsetter that inspired my post today is one written by someone called Jeff Walker who owns The Product Launch Formula. He was talking about a friend of his, John Reese and how he’d found a shortcut to having the #One-ranked site in any niche.

The big mystery is to buy it. Yep, that’s right. That’s what they say. Of course this sounds just too easy. But how much do you think a website owner would sell a site for if he’s spend precious time and money edging it into the @One spot? He’s not going to let it go easily right?

But even if he did that, the person who got the site into the #One spot in the first place–can’t he do it again with another site? And then what? Would all the money you just paid for your @One spot be just a big waste of time? And assuming you bought the site because you don’t know a thing about SEO, wouldn’t the field then be open for anyone who does know SEO to streak past you?

If you take a look at his site, Jeff has a Google PR of 5. Now that’s not easy to achieve, and whether  he calls it that or not, he must be using some form of SEO to achieve such good results in an extremely competitive niche. So isn’t he misleading his potential customers? I’ll say.

No matter how some ‘marketers’ try to paint the picture, there’s no getting away from the fact that if you want good online marketing results, you simply must learn about SEO or hire someone who does. Period.

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Have you noticed how many online groups are offering their members some kind of help with SEO lately? As part of ‘keeping my finger on the pulse’ I’m signed up to a number of online newsletters. Only a couple of them are actually for SEO. The rest are a variety of marketing, writing and other online business groups. All of them at some point have run articles about SEO.

The latest really surprised me: American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI) just ran an article called “7 Steps to a Winning SEO Strategy.” Alarmingly, in the middle of a fairly basic description of SEO strategy, they’re offering a Web copywriting intensive that will make you a “working web copy specialist after only three days of training.”

I’d be the first to admit that good writing skills are essential to good copy, but I really don’t think you can learn everything you need to know to be a good SEO writer in three days. Heck, after working in the field for two years it took me a couple of months to decide whether or not I knew enough to go out on my own as a fully-fledged SEO writer.

Companies that promote these kind of schemes in any niche are, in my opinion, doing a great disservice to their profession. There’s a lot to be said for experience and the kind of knowledge you can only get from immersion in a certain subject. I don’t think you can’t learn enough about anything to actually work in the field. And if you’re going to learn something, doesn’t it make a lot more sense to learn from someone who specializes in that particular niche?

What do you think?

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