Thanks for the thoughtful comment and yes, it is pretty amazing to realize how simple the solution to prominent search rankings is: creating content that impacts people enough to link. Simple eh?

My only regret about this piece is that I may have diminished blogging a little bit. I find that people just get a bit too enamored with blogging as a way to generate huge traffic (and passive income). I see blogging as much more powerful when it comes to building influence and reputation – which works well if you want to get more clients and bill at better rates perhaps, or get access to new opportunities in your field.

So I should do another follow-on piece at some point on what blogging can accomplish…but I’m always surprised how many so-called SEO experts claim that blogs can be the key to SEO, when it’s clear that well organized content in book format on static pages is far more powerful. One example of that would be wikipedia and how dominant it has become in search results.

- Jon

I also sometimes find myself having to clarify what meta tags are and aren’t. A few people still nurture the misconception that they’re a quasi-secret way to trick search engines. I think this view is a relic of the pre-Google ’90s — back then, you *could* fool certain search engines with spammy meta keyword sets. One popular strategy was listing movie star names (especially female ones, with important additional keywords like “nude”).