Link Development v. Search Engine Optimization

I've engaged in several conversations about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on social media platform called Hive.

I made a few negative comments about SEO and realized that I needed to elaborate on these views.

I believe that web developers have an obligation to the Internet community at large to consider how their web site works with the flow of traffic through the World Wide Web.

The hyperlink is the defining character of the Web. Users of the web will follow links into a web site. If a web site is designed well, they will follow links back out of the web site.

Web developers and  content creators have an effect on the overall flow of traffic through the web.

I consider this to be a wonderful thing.

The term I like to use for this concept is "Link Development."

Many Internet Marketers engage in a dark art called "Search Engine Optimization" or SEO for short.

SEO assumes that most web traffic will start with a search engine. SEO Marketers employ tricks to get their web sites listed at the top of Search Engine results.

SEO Marketers tend to develop their web sites to the desires of the Search Engine companies and fail to engage in proper link development.

Hive has a feature called a "community." In this upcoming week, I will launch a Hive Community that talks about and openly engages in link development. I will mirror this conversation on my blogspot blog as well since blogspot has a larger potential audience.