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Shedding the SEO's Technicolor Leisure Suit
February 02, 2006
I was kicking off a campaign a few weeks ago with a conference call. Along with the client was the client's new web dev/hosting vendor, and the three of us had a great call. We prioritized the issues we wanted to cover and discussed potential obstacles and set up a list of tasks to tackle first in the campaign.
At the end of the call, the web dev consultant said, "Well, I have to admit I'm impressed. When I heard there was an 'SEO' on board, I assumed you'd recommend joining a few link farms and leave it at that."
Et tu, Coder? I think it's a shame when all it takes to impress someone is not being an idiot. Where had he gotten that impression of SEO?
So then I was reading through Todd Malicoat's great post about the relative lack of unity within SEO/SEM, and I can tell he's had similar experiences:
Most SEM’s dread when people ask them what they do. It is difficult to explain. Web design, technology, marketing. We rank people high in search engines. ... I don’t, however, want to be associated with e-mail spammers, search engine submitters, or people who sell overpriced meta-tag optimization. I like small business owners much more than I like these folks, and our reputation with them is important. 90% of this industry is great, and I’d like to see it represented that way. We’re really not shady, worthless criminals.
Pretty much anyone can hang up a shingle and claim to be an SEO. And maybe that's part of the problem. Have you ever received hundreds of emails from offline marketers claiming that they can submit your company details to Time, Newsweek, NYT, and hundreds of other major publications for $199?
Chances are that you haven't, because no one would believe it. Unfortunately, however, the Web is still cryptic enough to many people that comparable claims about web sites are pervasive.
In his article, Todd suggests that a stronger industry association (such as SEMPO) would help legitimize our profession, and he may be right. Traditionally, we've avoided the industry groups because of the SEO's Paradox:
- If you let just anyone in, then affiliation really doesn't mean anything. But on the other hand,
- We don't want to be subject to the rather arbitrary group-consensus approach to rigid definitions of professional SEO.
In nearly seven years, we've never had a prospective client who questioned our lack of "industry affiliation." So clearly, to them, it's not the same as a doctor practicing without a license. But maybe it should be, and maybe it will be in the future. We'll watch and see.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at February 2, 2006 07:59 AM
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