It’s time that we learn a few things about SEO. Or rather the opposite, a few things that is not SEO. It’s very common that people preaching SEO want everything to be SEO, the marketing, the PR, the product and whatever you can think about.
Let’s take the core product of the company, it’s very common for SEO consultants to want to get involved in this and they are right in a way. It’s a lot easier to rank for a sexy product. If you’re a a network of fashion blogs you’ll have it easier than a deep sea drilling company, that’s the truth. SEO’s in general will tell you they should be involved everywhere but that’s just bad for the business.
No matter that there would be benefits of having SEO competence in the product development, it’s not the time and space for SEO. If they claim they need to present there, they’re just too bad at what they are doing. You don’t have to start producing fashion blogs, even deep sea drilling companies can do SEO, with the right people.
Of course I’m taking it to an extreme but let me give you some real examples of what the SEO industry think they should be part of. We can start with the close areas (not so insane), conversion, ppc and social media. All thesa are more or less a matter of taste, if you want to bring an SEO in here, fine, it’s up to you. But when we look at advertising, user behaviour, print marketing and development this is where I draw the line. Sure the SEO will get easier but easy SEO is not a goal in itself. Any SEO with basic knowledge can deliver results without having to infest all meetings in the company.
They just have to learn the basics of how a company is working. If you just keep adding everyone that could have useful info to a meeting everyone in the company will be tied up in meetings all the time. SEO can of course have useful input everywhere but so can your hairdresser and your puppy, don’t let them dictate what your core business is though.
Let’s get back to the headline, SEO is not a popularity contest. This is another common misconception among optimizers in the world, that the one with most friends will rank best. This is not the truth, I’d actually want to be as rude as to voice the opinion that it’s the opposite of the truth. SEO does not come from PR, from Social Media or even from User Retention. SEO is a completely different skillset.
