SEO - why as an industry we deserve respect

I am often amazed just how the SEO community has evolved. The evolution of social communities on Facebook and the like has only served to enhance this perspective. For example, on my friends list you will find people like Danny Sullivan, Andrew Girdwood, Jon Myers, Bill Slawski and Gord Hotchkiss - none of whom I have ever met face to face - but people who I have learnt to respect due to their posts and articles on various aspects of search marketing.

In particular, it is this sharing of knowledge that separates Search Marketing from many other industries. I cannot count the number of times I have read one of Bill’s patent application related posts or debated an aspect from one of Gord Hotchkiss’ columns, all of whom are happy to share knowledge and expertise with other members of the community either via the own personal blogs, their corporate blogs, or via the many conferences and seminars that organisations such as SMX organise across the globe.

Whilst I am in no doubt that these individuals do not share all their secrets (well would you?), they do share a hell of a lot, and this is something that keeps many people constantly testing and refining their own theories and concepts which are often then share again and again and again. What other industry can say that?

At the end of the day, with search marketing in its infancy (in comparison to many other sectors), surely this sharing of knowledge is invaluable to the continuing growth of the industry. We are not able to reference text books, we do not have a hundred years of learnings to develop tactics from, and above all - we work within a sector that is changing - from day to day - even hour to hour.

What an exciting place to be ….

1 comment October 16th, 2007