SEO - Do we need to evolve - Part II

September 10th, 2007

I was recently speaking to a PR colleague of mine, following some correspondance recently with her. During the conversation she raised a number of points relating to the e-mail I had sent and highlighted that some of the terminology used was overly technical and could be simplified for ‘human consumption’

At first I will say I was slightly taken aback. However, having further thought about it, I would suggest this is a problem I could throw at many SEO specialists in the industry. I have lost touch with the number of search engine optimisation experts that use pr syndication, lsi seo, social media optimisation and the like willy nilly. Is it any wonder that SEO is still regarded as a black art - or rather more of a misunderstood profession.

Education vs Evolution

Terms such as the above only make sense to us online marketing professionals. Ask many marketing manager what SEO is, and I would suggest you will get a fairly blank look, never mind Social Media Optimisation. Therefore this begs the question.

Do we need to educate peers such as marketing managers OR do we need to evolve and talk to these people in a language they understand.

I would suggest a mixture of both would suffice. We as online marketeers do over-engineer much of what we do - however the fact remains much of what we do is specialised - and often overlooked during any online or dare i say offline marketing campaigns. Internet Marketing has its own little specialisations much as other sectors do, which will always make it different, however if we could talk more as marketeers and less as techies - surely this will only serve to enhance the benefits and standing of online marketing and search marketing in particular.

However the education aspect certainly shouldn’t be overlooked. In a recent article on advertising age Mark Simon mentioned the following:

“4.SEARCHLESS ADVERTISING.

Many CMOs have no problem authorizing multimillion-dollar TV and print campaigns, but their systematic neglect of search marketing borders on the criminally myopic. Search-engine marketing doesn’t drive demand; it responds to it, which means that unless your brand is present to capture post-ad queries, you’ve failed to close the marketing loop. Plus, it’s quite likely your competitors are already exploiting that failure with strategies to poach the awareness you’ve spent so much to generate.”

This unfortunately happens a lot within the advertising sector ( I read an article highlighting this on the Muller - ‘Lick the Lid of life’ campaign ). Just imagine how effective some offline only campaigns could be if search or online marketing as a whole were introduced with the aim of enhancing what message the offline is trying to convey. Well needless to say - I would suggest in many cases results speak for themselves.

To conclude - we are new sector, a new profession - and we are still finding our way. Maybe though - we just need to find it a little quicker

Entry Filed under: SEO Industry