This channel reinforces the reason I got out of SEO

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Alan Bleiweiss: The problem is real - every "professional services" industry deals with it. At least when they post here, we can respond with a wake-up response or challenge their understanding of what they think they know. So for that, I think it helps newcomers who come to the group, and those challenges may even help those who claim to know things. I`m curious though David -if you got out of SEO, why do you continue to participate in the community? Your knowledge is strong and your comments are helpful. Yet if you truly got out of SEO, then why bother?
• 
  David Ogletree: I’m sorry I was not trying to say this group has no value. I think your providing a necessary service
• 
  Brandy Malnar: I don`t worry about it too much. It`s difficult in that it cheapens our industry when everybody and their brother claims to understand SEO because they read a book, however it helps the rest of us who`ve spent YEARS ranking sites and have a full, comprehensive knowledge of it: When clients finally find US, they stay. They appreciate. They get it.
• 
  Jim Munro: David Ogletree - would you like to nominate a thread that fits your description? I cannot think of one but I think it would be healthy to study and debate a bad thread on this community if there is one.
• 
  Saurav Sett: David Ogletree This happens with web design too. I have seen people selling wix and weebly sites to clients. Or people who just buy and set up a Wordpress theme but don`t care to optimize or secure the site ( probably don`t know how ). Be it SEO or web design or any other profession. These people starting out would pick up clients who in most cases wouldn`t pay the kind of fees a professional would charge.
• 
  Brent Thomason: That’s pretty arrogant. I retired early at 48 after 12 years of web development, SEO, PPC, specializing in lead generation. I would be really interested in some examples of what statements people have made that would make them appear to be amateurs. What do you think makes someone a SEO?
• 
  Francois-Pierre Marcil: David Ogletree With the same logic, examine "Business Consulting" (McKinsey) or even "Marketing Services" (Ogilvy & co) and you will come back to SEO running. Your complaint is about the "way the world works" and you can`t abandon the world because there are too many bad, lazy or untalented people. In fact, you have a responsibility to make it all better and make your talent shine. Quit SEO if you want, you didn`t describe SEO, you will see this everywhere.
• 
  David Ogletree: I did say I see the same thing in PPC. Also I’m not talking about advanced SEO. All of us learn new stuff every day. The main reason I did not come back to SEO was I retired for too long and did not feel like getting back into it. It also did not seen as fun as it used to be. I do Adwords training right now and I really love what I’m doing.
• 
  Gerry White: People have to start somewhere and actually the principles of SEO are fundamentally accessible, experience changes your understanding of them. I’ve seen heads of SEO on multinational companies who are more clueless than you’ve seen here, but aren’t willing to learn.... I understand your point, but I don’t see the solution being to make it feel like asking entry level qs is a bad thing
• 
  Terry Lambert: I’m a Plumbing and heating engineer, we are forever fighting against a tide of short course experts ( many career changes from the SEO community 😂) It drags us all down and damages the profession, they pick off the easy bread and butter jobs by working cheap, making it difficult in some areas for professionals to maintain a business
• 
  Montse Londres: I see your point, but it also feels there is more than just this entry level issue. I believe everyone has a different level of experience and deserve some credit. One of the best things about SEO and digital marketing in general is how accessible they are. It allows for pros coming from a variety of backgrounds to contribute with their skills. The right attitude can count a lot more than other things. Of course, the flip side is that it can be misleading. Companies could also be blamed for this. A good professional takes years to make and a lot of reading, asking questions and experimentation, not just one or two campaigns.
• 
  Patty Mantaloons: In the last few months I`ve seen a few questions in here from newcomers to SEO that are charging clients for their services. Sure, it`s cringe-worthy, but it says nothing new about the SEO industry. For over a decade I`ve seen countless web service providers of every ilk claim to offer SEO services, often as a little add-on package, but sometimes as a specialty. It`s a double-edged sword though - on one hand can make the industry look like garbage--and then by extension many people will assume that you also offer garbage. *However* I think the side of the sword that can shine a little brighter, especially with increasingly educated business owners and even company executives, is the one where you stand out that much more as the real deal in a sea of charlatans. It can be a real relief for business owners to finally find someone that knows what they`re doing. I got my feet wet and SEO about 15 years ago, worked for a one-trick pony, albeit financially successful SEO agency about 3 years after that as their `clean coder`. I contributed actual value with my position there, but I also learnt a lot about how charlatans in the industry work. I went out on my own about 10 years ago, and quickly came to realize that 90% of my clients had left their previous SEO with a really bad taste in their mouth. That fact only served to further strengthen my relationship with new clients. David what is it about the industry plagued with LSI experts posing as "gurus" that made you pack up? Being associated with and Industry filled to the gills with snake oil salesmen?
• 
  Al Jones: We are also under attack by so called SEO experts (mostly from overseas) calling us or emailing us with a long list of SEO issues they claim our website has and more than 80% of the remedies they recommend are either so 90`s, or they can actually get your site banned. They`ve even recommended that we list our website on DMOZ not knowing that DMOZ closed its doors. They don`t even visit our website before contacting us, or they do but don`t bother to read to learn that we offer SEO services. When we asked them whether they checked the website and recommend that they do, they hangup the phone. We even had a so called SEO company with a website that was slower than a snail. Once, we played along and asked caller how much he would charge us for SEO and their reply was $150/month, and when we told them that we offer SEO services and to go ahead and check our website out, he asked us if we could outsource our projects to him because it is very cheap. So I reminded him to check our website where we clearly state that we don`t outsource. I feel for you guys!
• 
  Zoran Jozić: How awkward and one-sided approach. Isn`t the name of the group `Dumb SEO questions`? So I guess it`s okay to stop by and ask `basic` questions unless the name of the group was purposely made missleading. While I can discuss certain advanced SEO concepts, I still don`t know some of the basic principles. Am I to conclude that my questions aren`t welcomed here?! I noticed that a few commenters complained about newbies asking questions in forums. What is the purpose of these forums? For experts to ask questions? Correct me if I`m wrong, but shouldn`t experts know their own stuff? You count lack of knowledge against beginners, but you tolerate the same thing with experts. How strange. Additionally, spitting on the overseas SEOs is just a cheap shot: some highly skilled SEOs do come from overseas. Dawn Anderson, Barry Adams, Aleyda Solis, Gianluca Fiorelli just to name a few. What personally bothers me more than `basic` questions is blatant offers of SEO services within the group.