Danny Denhard
image courtesy of Kirsten Alana Photography
From a personal perspective I have always found Danny very approachable and despite supporting Arsenal he has a very level headed approach to SEO/SEM. This interview has its seeds sewn in one of many twitter exchanges.
What follows is another set of 10 SEO questions from my noggin. The links are my additions.
Last year I ended these 10 SEO questions with “2011 is the year of …?”, let’s start with that one. 2012 is the year of?
- Trial and error
- Social SEO
- Sites being hit with penalties This year has started with a lot of “social enhancements” I think it is the year where SEO’s have to really think about what is going to work for the website and not rely on the normal tactics.
- The year people start actually realising the power of their own site and what influence they can have by using the own site in the right way.
- Power of the free net and creating relationships
We have had some late night banter in the past (along with Rob Watts) whinging about Google. What pisses you off the most about big G?
Are you hating Google+?
G Plus goes against everything that is social and forcing user sign up and the constant (PR) stories that come out of G camp actually upsets me.
The second thing which frustrates me is the varying noises that comes out of G – for a company of huge influence to put out mixed messages is questionable and somewhat irresponsible. I can take the varying results and brand weighting just cannot take the constant PR spins and marketing messages pumped into the ether.
I’m not anti-G just do not understand their stand point or the way they want to control the internet.
You have been within the SEO industry for a decade now and have had your fair share of client “situations”, what has been the stand out eureka moment for you during your time?
Honestly it came very recently when I became very disillusioned with the whole industry and started to look to concentrate on social, a site I was working on had a real issues in the eyes of Google and without panicking I knew the answer, beyond a gut feeling, maybe an epiphany. We implemented a number of small technical changes and it is now doing very well and often when asked I would say I am most proud of working on their website.
Confidence in your own ability is key in SEO.
On the other end of the scale we have all fecked up at one point or another, what has been the biggest nerve jangling moment where you thought “feck” and how did you put it right?
There was a moment a few years back, where I recommended a 301 redirect rule on a site with 1 million plus pages and managed to delete a paragraph in the SEO ticket , the redirect was placed and luckily I had a site crawl and rank checker set up on the Monday morning and alarm bells rang, thankfully a good relationship with the dev team meant a quick turn around.
I cannot emphasis enough the importance of close working relationships clients and the dev team.
Relax for a minute, clear your mind … done? Name one SEO resource you could not live without?
Honestly I would have to say the support network I have around me, I have some really good people I can call upon.
Just for fun. Explain what SEO is in 140 characters?
SEO is increasing visibility of a given website whether that is ranks, gaining the most click through’s or convert visitors to set actions.
The mainstream view of SEO, “shite” or “shiny” and why?
I think most people would consider it as a: dark art – the majority of marketers and board members know SEO still do not have a clue how it works and how it makes their business perform.
It is our responsibility as SEO’ers / online marketers / search people to educate these people and empower them.
My fear is how the industry is being conditioned internally at the moment, many people are too easily influenced by blog posts and have not got the experience to make, break and fix things and would happily read a blog post and take it as Gospel.
You have Matt Cutts cornered in a room, he has no way out and any escape attempt would be futile. You have the opportunity to ask him why one particular vertical or search term is so messed up. Which one would it be?
Personally I would show him the travel space within google.co.uk – holidays and travel vertical is full of inconsistencies, is too brand focused and has certain niches are controlled by EMD (Exact Match Domains). The amount of low quality links being pushed in travel is pretty ugly.
A side note…..I played pool against him in Seattle last year and the guy is a shark (do not challenge him at 8 ball) and I asked Matt some interesting questions, (one specifically focused on algo updates) and one particular question he answered, quality over quantity but clearly does not matter in certain verticals including travel.
Social signals, GSPYW, we are not going to dodge them and they are here to stay. While other platforms have come and gone Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are fighting for our data, who are you giving yours and clients to?
For clients, I like a blended approach personally, if I had to pick one Twitter would probably get the vote but I am fighting hard for Facebook for most. Facebook search engine is going to come and all you need to do is look at Facebook with your SEO analyst glasses on and you will see how they are geared for SEO.
GSPYW is an interesting development, I hate being signed in but its becoming an interesting development- the day I have to sign in and use personalised results on G, is the day I use another search engine. Remember most SEO’ers will use Google the way it displays the best SERP’s for the search not for your “friends” articles, likes etc.
Google+ will be a force to be reckoned with in very specific niche markets – find your niche and use it as a content platform – engagement may come.
The professional hat on: I must stress how important it is you review each client and look at their business offering and then pick.
50 years from now Google, Yahoo and Bing are one search engine who have acquired Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn along the way. This monster advertising network offers every ability to target every demographic for every product. What hope does the small business have of competing in the same space without the spend?
The small business owner has every opportunity now, in a few years and in 50 years, it will be about knowing the customer, knowing the dynamics and predicting what they might want. Think about Tesco’s they can predict from your clubcard what your shopping will be and an algo will be able to say you need cheese, milk, bread and steak all from previous purchase history, you will need to compete to this level.
Its like it was when your parents and grandparents were our age, the local butcher knew the cut of meat you prefer, the local store would remember you like Pepsi Max not diet coke.
Tip: Track Facebook ads – see how they have evolved and see how they predict things later this year.
Huge thank you to Danny for taking time out this past weekend to answer and contribute to my 10 SEO Questions With.. series.
If you don’t already follow Danny, get over to that there twitter and engage in some polite convo (@DannyDenhard), he will especially be pleased if you mention Sunderland AFC knocking them out of the FA Cup.
