Rocket Science, Vodoo Magic or Strategy? Does Your Client Really Care?

I really hoped this whole issue of SEO Rocket Science would go away, but I guess when you need publicity for your company its really hard to let things go.  I felt  Danny responded to this whole debate very well, and spoke for me as well, the first time around.  However, in light of additional articles from the duo over at Did-It, comments from Calacanis, and even from ShoeMoney (and hey I like & respect Shoe!), I wanted to add some of my thoughts into this whole issue. 

I fall into the camp of Danny, Greg, & Todd.  If you don't do this kind of stuff for a living, it is "Rocket Science", heck to some it's almost like "Brain Surgery", or even like translating Arabic to English, but it certainly isn't Voodoo Magic!  What we do is completely and utterly foreign to people who do not know that you don't type "www.homedepot.com" in that "Google Box" in the middle of the page to navigate to the Home Depot site.

That said, however, there is part of me that also agrees with Mike Grehan, in that the old way of doing SEO isn't rocket science.  Once you learn it, put it into practice, it'll get you somewhere in the search engines.  You still need this part of SEO though, so there I disagree with Mike.  But to Mike's point about the old way of doing SEO, with each and every month that passes a new complexity can be added into the mix that not just "anyone" can figure out, and that's where our "profession" as Search Engine Optimizers comes in.

This fact couldn't have stared me more in the face and douse me with cold water than at the keynote in Chicago when Jason Calacanis said SEO was "bullshit."  I was sitting with Ward Tongen and Mikkel deMib Svendsen both people who I really respect, and both who have a great wealth of knowledge in the industry.  After Calacanis said that, Mikkel turns to Ward and I and said "Obviously he's never tried to optimize a site to rank for Viagra!"

Who would have known that Viagra is a tough market to crack into?  Certainly not your next door neighbor who is still trying to figure out  just what it is you do on the internet for a living.

There is a science to what we do, with each and every client we need to meticulously research their particularly industry, understand it inside and out from a search engine's perspective, know who the players are, know WHY they are players and also why someone who should be a player isn't.  Could Aunt Annie who has a quilting business know to go and do all that?  NO.  Does Aunt Annie care about all of that? NO.  Doe Aunt Annie care that she's selling her quilts globally to people in Denmark?  Maybe, but more to the point Aunt Annie cares that she sold the quilt through her website and made money.

This goes to Gord's point that it's the customer who will decide, if our "profession" is worth the investment that is made.  If you are someone who thinks SEO is all about title tags and good content, then you likely won't last long in this business.  Why?  Because clients want more - they want know that we understand their business and how it relates to them being successful on internet. 

Your client doesn't care if you ranked a site #1 for cheap airline tickets if they are selling running shoes.  Your client wants to know that you understand that Nike and New Balance are the big players in search and why.  They also want to know that you have an "ethical" strategy to get them that market share, that'll help sell their running shoes and won't get them burned 6 months down the road.

I sure hope folks are done taking pot shots at one segment of the Internet Marketing industry over another just for publicity or for link bait.  In the end, I sure hope you realize, your customers don't really care about that either. :)

Comments

[David Temple]

Yeah I know this is hard to ignore and I blogged about it too except my post was how simple rocket science is. Just read NASA's rocket science 101. So if you look at it that way SEO isn't rocket science but then again neither is rocket science.