Is SEO snake oil?

Real SEO in a nutshell:

1. Google is smarter than you. Their main project is their search engine. They almost certainly make more money then you, and they absolutely spend more money on their search engine than you would on "SEO".

2. People use google because it finds what they want. To improve their search engine -- to make it more effective -- they make it better at finding what people want.

3. Therefore: the best way to improve your ranking on google is to make your site something that people want to find.

That's it. It's that simple. Do you think you can outsmart google? Can any "SEO expert"? No? Then you have to play their game. The game of making your site something that real people want to find.

Sounds like a good game to me.

I'm interested to find out what people think of this article, especially those who sell SEO services