Does SEO deserve such a bad reputation?
Social Media Bible, Chapter 19–Spotlight on Search (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization is a popular topic among online pundits. Do a Google search and up comes 106 MILLION matches…that’s because everybody and his brother seems to be a “guru” in this area, willing to help you make your website more inviting to the masses…for a fee, of course! Want your head to spin? Look at the Wikipedia entry for SEO. But, for an interesting take on why there seems to be a lot of negative chatter about SEO and the people who do it, check out this link: Why people hate SEO. When you go to that page, be sure to watch the video clip (or find it on YouTube here) of a guy who seems just a little bit sleezy offering his SEO services to you. (I hope he’s not somebody’s brother who is in our class!) There’s an appropriate reference used online (and in the text) for people like this: black hat SEO guys…compared to white hat…you get the picture.
What’s wrong with just making sure you have great content on your page? How about carefully selecting key words to describe the content of your website and putting those in properly formatted meta tags on your site? (p. 362). This chapter of the book highlights some of these fairly simple, effective and ethical ways to get better search results for your webpages. There are too many specifics to explain here, but the author‘s list includes using meta tags, fresh content, title tags and accurate page titles. He also mentions a practice called a link exchange campaign, in which you actually ask other sites to link back to yours to increase the number of “external reputable links” for your site.
I think many of these techniques will be over the head of the usual business owner, so he/she will need to rely on someone on the staff or in a PR/Marketing/Advertising firm to help make the company’s site more accessible to search engines, without resorting to some of the “black hat” tactics. The chapter has an extensive list of tips on page 367. Even if a business paid attention to just some of those, it would probably get a better search engine response.
Why is Search Engine Optimization so important? The conclusion of the chapter puts it best …”it’s about being found exactly when your customers are looking for you.” (p. 376).
Madsen Media 
Good post. I loved the article and video. I recently, in an effort to make some extra money to pay for my daughter’s wedding, did some freelance writing for an SEO firm, probably this guy. They didn’t care what the articles said, they just wanted the keywords up in the lede. They wanted 400-word “articles” of they didn’t care what, as long as the keywords were in the headline and lede. What a bunch of bull. (for which I was paid the grand sum of $10 per 400-word “article”. Boo!) I totally agree with your assessment of what we, as PR/marketing people, need to worry about: prominence, tagging, link-backs. I think anything more leans toward being manipulation, anything less is doing a disservice to the audiences who are looking for us. Making sure we’re being strategic about what keywords we’re choosing. Other than that, I’m not going to spend much time worry about it (at least where I am now). If I ever need to, I’ll hire a white-hat expert!