Man, these designers must be getting their optimization service list off a template somewhere...I see the exact same thing all over the Denver area.  The one that gets me the most fired up is the "search engine submission" service...what a scam. 

And we wonder why everyone is so wary of SEOs...

Loving this article as well. 

I’m starting to see SEO/organic traffic as two different things at this point.  SEO related traffic is really traffic that comes from the deliberate design and modification of a website to meet the requirements of the ranking algorithms of major search engines.  Organic traffic is people navigating directly to your site, through typing a URL into the address bar or by searching for your company's name in a search engine, because they know your company and they want to go to your site for information or for a service you provide.

Looking at it this way, all of this social media marketing should be looked at from the organic standpoint, which means branding and building awareness of your site/company.  I think this is really where social media comes in…a visit from Digg or StumbleUpon might not make you money right away, but it may help build the brand and lead to a sale down the line.

Sure, social media marketing can help with SEO, especially with linking, but like Jill says, it’s no substitute for good fundamentals.  That’s why it seems that we should pursue social media with organic traffic/branding/awareness in mind, not so much SEO (any link juice you get will just be a bonus).

Hey jgoddard, could you (or anyone) elaborate a bit more on why using WordPress as a CMS system is "not a good idea?" 

Thanks!