SEO is like fashion

No, I’m not talking about black, white, blue, grey or any other coloured hat you might wear whilst doing SEO, but instead I want to talk about how Search Engines are really very much like fashionista’s.

To explain this a little better, let’s look at how the fashion industry works.

A designer will come-up with a ‘new look’ and then as that look becomes popular, everyone starts wearing it. The problem is that once a particular look becomes mainstream, it’s no longer fashionable, so the designers have to come-up with something totally different.

One of the things to take note of is that a particular look doesn’t get dismissed because it was impractical, had design flaws or simply didn’t work. It simply lost popularity because it was too common.

So why am I talking about fashion on an SEO blog?

It’s because the Search Engine’s view SEO techniques the same way society views fashion.

When Google first introduced us to the benefits of links, it didn’t really matter where the link came from, they were all counted equally. After a while the concept of linking from anywhere and everywhere became common knowledge (popular), so Google started devaluing links from unrelated sites.

So then people started finding similar websites to link to (and from) and reciprocal linking was born. This worked quite well for a while until it too became popular and before long, reciprocal links lost some of their weight.

Various other links schemes have emerged over the years, including the buying/selling of links, but like everything else, that too was penalised.

All of these techniques, just like fashion, were all quite successful until everyone started doing them. But fashion doesn’t move at the same pace word wide – fashion in Europe is different to the US which is different to that of Asia etc. etc.

The same with websites – different search techniques that may not work too well in one country or for a particular industry might still yield good results elsewhere… until the time comes when everyone in that niche or geographical location abuses the techniques and before you know it – your site is unfashionable.

So what can you do to keep up with this?

You can do what a lot of people do and keep abreast of the latest trends, read fashion magazines and update your wardrobe each season. Or you can come-up with your own unique style that may not be the most popular, but still looks good and most importantly, you’re comfortable with it.

In SEO terms, this means you can either read all the popular SEO blogs and forums, do what all the other SEOs are doing (and then whinge like everyone else when there’s an algorithm shift). Or you can put more time and effort into making your own site as good as it can be and once you’re comfortable with the content, design, layout, you’ll be surprised how many people will appreciate it and you may even gain links without even trying.

By now, I’ve probably insulted all those interested in fashion and completely misrepresented the SEO industry… so if you can think of any better analogies to describe the SEO industry (and possibly get me out of trouble) I’d be really interested to hear them – so please, post some comments.