Being an SEO specialist, I realized that SEO is not about being the best programmer in order to understand Google’s system. It’s about ranking in Google’s Search engine results page because you are relevant and you want to market out something through being a presence in the first page.
How you perceive the company is vital. IT people are not marketers. Programmers are not marketers. They just don’t think like a marketer. I’m not generalizing them but most of them do not have that marketing spark in them. They’re more into the technical aspect of SEO. And the technical aspect doesn’t count for much.
SEO has a foundation of playing with words. Your keywords are the foundation of your site’s SEO. Wrong keywords means wrong foundation, which means that your entire SEO structure is built on the wrong cornerstone.
SEO is also a mind game. It’s essence is getting into the minds of your customers and thinking like them. Only the best marketers can do that. And it doesn’t stop there – it gets technical too. You have to think like your customer (knowing what the customer wants) and then know what the keywords your customer is likely to type in Google for your company to be relevantly found.
The best SEO specialists that I know aren’t IT people. They aren’t programmers or coders. They’re marketers. They know how to get their brand or product out there and they’re using SEO as one of the tools that are essential to do that work.
About Sean
You are talking about Internet Marketing not SEO alone. When it comes to SEO, technical part play a big role. Remember the basic onpage factor.
Yup! Now the question you have to ask yourself is, what's more important – the technical part of SEO or the internet marketing aspect of SEO? For me being a white hat practitioner, I make sure my SEO is about people. In consequence, the internet marketing aspect of SEO is more important for me
you don't need to choose as they are both important, they work hand in hand. learning how to sell, and how to market online is no use if you can't rank any single page.
Nice one, yeah right. I am not a programmer myself but a marketing professional and yet I'm good at seo. I think right attitude and more understanding of the market concept can bring a page to top.
Yup glad you agree with me Yanna :)
Yup I agree they are both important. You shouldn't neglect either one of them.
very well written Sean :) I do agree with the point you've given here, though one thing that I mostly notice with what people think about SEO is that they only think of link building and traffic generation. But as an SEO, I know that the work doesn't stop there, SEO shouldn't just bring traffic or be stuck with that idea alone, the campaign must also be able to convert them.
Thanks Kaiser
True. Some companies measure success by conversions, others by traffic, others by subscriptions, etc… It all depends.
This is a good post – I think to put things into perspective an SEO specialist is an Internet Copywriter who has is using an automation tool (keywords) to ensure the content is right first time and give the best possible results – i.e. knowing what the customer wants/searching for.
Good job.
Thanks James.
Glad you got something out of this resource
Yes Sean – based from my personal experience, technical know-how just helps publish the concept – but it takes a person with common sense, marketing skills, and great judgement (barrels of patience) to become successful in SEO. I have many programmer friends, but non of them is SEO expert… I just recently found one though, just one out of many… plus! “white hat SEO” is not a common choice for programmers I met….. keep it up SEAN! thanks for the post.
Thanks Olive!
Yeah Programming, IT, Systems analysis – all are very different fields. SEO is more of marketing and online strategies rather than the logic flow of systems analysis and programming. It also has a lot to do with being a wordsmith. God bless you Olive :)
I agree with you but i really think that marketers with a good programmer knowledge are the best for seo purposes.
A programming background will always be beneficial :)