If you really want to be a respected authority, you’ll want to watch closer at what you write, because with a huge audience there will be one that will find a flaw.

With power comes the responsibility. The responsibility to continue providing useful, correct advice, in this case.

As true it is that after the person has been providing useful stuff for a while, he becomes a respected person, so is true that the same person publishes a low quality post, hisauthority shudders a bit. This is the process that is happening and I am not sure why others are so pumped about it.

SEO Bloggers, blog about the same thing - day in and out. If digg is the big link monster, every blogger is on it, and eventually it reaches the ear of the spammer who decides to test this and spams digg. No one in the SEO community will take accountability for this, in-fact, many SEO’s will deny having anything to do with the spam. But truth is, it came from the community and therefore it’s truth. It’s a frightening thought, that the SEO community stands righteous and fights for attention, by all means - it’s well deserved - the industry is credible and should make noise. But with that comes responsibility and accountability or did someone forget to mention this?

Early this year, I subscribed to over 30 SEO Bloggers, and have now reduced that to 4 websites. Here’s my reason for doing so:

1. Every SEO Blogger talks about the same thing
2. The supposed top guys, are really good at SEO (I Hope), but really bad at Customer Services. (I’ll explain that another time.)
3. Danny Sullivan is SEO - and therefore, he’s the only person I wish to listen to. (Aside from Bruce Clay who won me over with Incredible Customer Service - many should learn from them)
4. Matt Cutts is a no-brainer
5. Yahoo and Google Blogs - duh..
6. Search Engine Land (Who needs other blogging sites? They carry them all - or at least the ones that matter.)

There are a few sites, and a few in the industry who I rush right through. It’s sad, I used to think they were great. In the end, many don’t really stand up and take accountability or responsibility, it’s just blah blah blah. So I’ll stick the less-whiny bloggers that give me what I need faster and quicker. I actually added Bruce Clay’s blog and Danny’s personal blog to my RSS just because - I trust their word.

On another note, attitude goes a long way. Just because you think you’re great, and you may have the customers that pay for it. Doesn’t make you are the best at reporting it. It just makes you overpriced. I may not be part of a clique, but I do represent the customer who hires these services, as well as the SEO person you’re reporting to.

In regards to customer services:
Recently we contacted 4 well known people/companies in the industry for an estimate to get some websites to the next level. Price was no object, if we were worried about price, we would not be calling in the big guys. Bruce Clay’s company was the only one who went above and beyond to produce a valuable quote, based on their findings of the websites. The others - I won’t mention names, simply shot over a proposal - without so much as a look, and these are the supposed leaders of the industry. Guess who’s blog I’m still reading.