SEO technicians - evolve or die!

An interesting discussion came up on Web Hosting Talk, and I felt compelled to participate in it. The discussion was initially about SEO scammers, people who pretend they understand how search engines work and how to optimize for them, but at best know a few surface techniques and do very little for customers in the long run.

I made an assertion within that discussion that I’d like to make more formally here: SEOs who do not incorporate broader marketing strategies into their services, specifically related to conversion and ROI, will become obsolete and will die within the next five years.

The problem is that SEO experts, strictly by their definition, only work on improving rankings for certain key words and phrases. The end result of their work is high rankings. This is not in line with customer end results. Customers measure success based on very different criteria, such as visitor-to-customer conversion, measured by whatever action they expect of their customers (make a purchase, sign up for an event, register for a service, distribute a message, etc.). The greater the gap between the vendor’s measurement for success and the customer’s goal, the less relevant that vendor becomes. The SEO-only expert’s measurement for success is how high something ranks. The customer’s measurement for success is based on conversion and ROI. That’s a huge gap!

This wouldn’t be a problem if all SEO experts, Web developers, marketing experts, etc. stuck to their narrow scopes of expertise, but many are finding they can be effective in more than one area. Imagine an SEO with a marketing background and a degree of technical knowhow, who can not only drive traffic, but can analyze its quality, see where the site is losing traffic, and put together a strategy that keeps visitors engaged longer and compels them to act to the benefit of the site owner. This type of SEO expert is the one who is going to not only speak a language customers can understand, but whose impact will be most within his control, most measurable and most valuable.

The SEO expert with the broad marketing and technical skills exist are here, and they will be the death of the traditional SEO expert. You can’t beat them, so join them. Maybe this means broadening your own skill set. Maybe it means teaming up with other experts to deliver a more complete service. But if the only thing you bring to the table is SEO, your end results do not reflect your customers’ measurements for success, and you will risk appearing at best second-rate and at worse unnecessary. Just like every other expert who works in fields related to the Web, if you’re not willing to evolve, you will eventually become irrelevant.

Evolve or die!

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