[SquareWheel]

>If you feel SEO can do good show me an example where an SEO achieved value creation rather than shifting around a percentage in some zero sum game.

Your generalizations are really quite misguided. SEOs achieve value when they optimize sites to fit Google's guidelines, which as it happens also benefits humans. Converting Flash sites to HTML, reorganizing the URL structure to convert ?articleid=5 to /my-great-article/, adding alt tags for screen readers, optimizing page speed, creating sitemaps, cleaning up 404s. Whitehat SEOs are often the caretakers of the web.

It's easy to focus on the bad guys who spam keywords and buy likes, but it's ignorant to assume that's all the industry consists of.

[jacquesm]

No, that does not create value. It creates the impression of creating value, but in actual fact the same number of $ are spent online so the only thing that changes is where the money is spent. Value creation is a way to get out of the zero sum game.

[rfergie]

If a business X is 5% better than business Y (for whatever reason) and marketing helps a customer go to business X rather than business Y then value is being created.

[jacquesm]

If you ask the business owners of X and Y which business is the better one then I'm sure that you'll get two different answers.

I don't think it is so hard to see that value creation is something that can't exist without creation. So when you take a set of low value inputs and you combine them (say, raw materials + energy + labour) and you then get something that you can sell for more than the inputs were worth then you have created value.

Marketing by itself does not create value (other than that it diverts some funds to the marketeer and possibly some funds from consumers to companies whose products are being marketed). Marketing creates turnover, not value.

[rfergie]

Ok, let me be less vague:

If business X is 5% cheaper than business Y then value for the customer is created if they go to business X rather than Y.

In your example, no value is created at all if the product never sells no matter how good it might be in theory

[jacquesm]

Ok, Let me be more explicit:

Typically marketing is used to put more expensive inferior products in the hands of more people rather than cheaper, higher quality products in the hands of more people.

So in that example value is destroyed, which is a ton easier (and much more likely) as a result of marketing than creating value (even if it is possible it likely is not going to happen, those that engage in marketing are rarely philanthropists).

[rfergie]

I'm not sure I agree about "typically" although I certainly agree that marketing can be used in that way.

Why is value much more likely to be destroyed as a result of marketing? Per unit of product I can see that this is the case as some of the value must be spent on marketing, but if more product is sold than would have been otherwise extra value can be created overall.

Engineers are also not philanthropists. I don't see what difference this makes

[Isofarro]

"marketing helps a customer go to business X rather than business Y"

That is a succinct description of a zero-sum game.

* Business X gains the same amount business Y loses.

There is no additional value!

[kwijybobyjiwk]

Business X may easily gain more than business Y loses, if the site cleanup yields a site that's easier to find, has more descriptive content, and is more accessible. Y's previously higher ranking may have caused some potential buyers in a product space to abandon looking--even if temporarily--due to lack of time or loss of interest. X might have a good product that missed some sales due to a "meh" reaction to Y's previously higher-ranked site.

Marketing effect can be difficult to quantify, but it's about more than ad dollars and the bottom line is definitely not a zero-sum game. While SEO doesn't lack for bad actors, white-hat SEO can help grow markets.

[rfergie]

There are more ways of generating value then just creating new customers.

For example, if the number of customers can be the same but if they are served better or cheaper than the competition then value is created

[UweSchmidt]

The activities that you've described seem quite basic: either something that any amateur can do by following a todo list, if the CMS doesn't take care of that anyway (prompt for alt tags, have sane URLs as default etc.).

While the SEO industry might be doing that also, that seems to be a fig leave for the actual activities.

Or is anyone making a living being the caretaker of the web, cleaning up 404s?