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DazzlinDonna’s take on SEO news, tips and theories.
I am no longer an SEO
I have been training/mentoring someone recently and I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer an SEO. That saddens me in a way. I liked being an SEO. But after going through the process of teaching someone the ins and outs of what I do, I realized that I just cannot call myself that anymore.
The problem is, I don’t know what to call myself. I create sites, so I might be a coder or a programmer or a web developer. I design those sites, so I might be a web designer, but since I’m not terribly good at that part of it, I don’t think I should wear that label. I optimize those sites and market them, so I might be an SEO/SEM. I occasionally remember to throw in some usability (usually whenever I hear Kim ranting), so I might be a usability …. what word would one use after the word “usability” to describe the job position? “Usability person”? “Usability guru”? Anyway, I digress.
I guess, in reality, I never was “just” an SEO. However, since my focus and interest was so intertwined with that aspect of what I do over the last few years, I suppose it was inevitable that I would call myself that. I suppose the best title for me would be Web Entrepreneur. That should be all-encompassing I think.
I’m considering changing that as well. I’m thinking of becoming a Web Entrepreneur Mentor. I’m discovering that I enjoy helping people do what I do. Let me tell you a little story about my latest mentoring project.
Several years ago, an online “friend” whom I’d never actually met, died. This friend was a fellow SEO (or was she?). Actually, as it turned out “she” was really a “he”, but I didn’t know that until his family contacted me. They’d seen his email and IM conversations with me, and hoped that I could help them continue on with the business he had created. After getting over the shock of both my friend’s death and his gender-bending online persona, I knew I had to help them. He had been my friend in whatever guise.
This family was clueless. Actually, in most ways, they still are. They really know next to nothing about running an online business. His wife, years later, still can’t bring herself to even turn on a computer. (She writes me letters…you know…with a pen…on paper…and snail mails them to me). His daughter, the one who is attempting to keep this going, is perhaps only slightly beyond that in experience level. She admits to being experienced enough to shop online, but that’s about it.
My job, within a scant 2 months, is to teach this woman everything she needs to know to keep their online business going, all on her own. Obviously, she’ll need to call in the reserves now and then, just as we all do, but essentially, she needs to have enough understanding to do 90% of this by herself.
I’ve discovered that there are a million little things I take for granted that have to be explained to a newbie. I’ve posted a short excerpt of one of the many tutorials I’ve created for her today, explaining the basic concepts of Social Networking sites. I’m sure I left out lots of things, but part of the difficulty in mentoring a newbie is knowing what to put in and what to leave out. They can only grasp so much at one time.
In case you’re confused about the timeline, I helped this family out several years ago when my friend died, but due to this woman’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, that relationship was severed way back then. Now, years later, the woman came looking for help again.
So…because I am always busy, I told her that I could only give her one month of my time (which I later agreed to stretch into two months). This meant that instead of just doing some SEO work on her sites, I needed to teach her what to do. And in the process of doing this, I realized that I could not just teach her SEO. She needed an education in every aspect. Honestly, I know I can’t teach her EVERYTHING in two months, but I think I’ve gotten her almost to the point of knowing enough. (We are at the 6 weeks point right now).
It is both frustrating to help her get past her confusion and doubts, and rewarding to see her take each step forward. It is extremely rewarding to see her become a person that someone else has always taken care of, to a person who will be capable of taking care of herself (and her mother). For these reasons, I’m considering offering this same service to others. I’ll need to think about the best way to handle this idea, but I think it might be the next step in my progression from SEO to Web Entepreneur to Web Entepreneur Mentor.
(I’ll always be an SEO in my heart, however). 
If any of you have any thoughts on moving into the Mentoring business, do let me know.
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33 Responses to “I am no longer an SEO”
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July 16th, 2007 at 7:44 am
You’re not alone, Donna! In listening to others from the SEO/M industry who talk to me about what’s on their minds, they feel exactly the same way.
The title “SEO” no longer applies to what many of them do, and they’re wondering what to call themselves to better describe what they do. The skill sets have changed drastically.
In my heart, I’ve been loyal to my own SEO roots, but I left straight SEO in 2002, mostly because it was too limiting and no longer challenging work (to me). The challenge lay in getting people to use the optimized site
What do you call someone who cares about that? I have no idea!
July 16th, 2007 at 8:24 am
That is a shocking title that got my attention.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:39 am
As Kim said, many are feeling in the same boat. SEO is now the best known online skill ‘out there’ and yet the best proponents are doing much more than merely getting to #1 in Google.
I’m starting a movement to get SEO accepted as the acronym for ‘Selling Effectiveness Optimization’. I hope I’ll get lots of support.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:06 am
My, my Barry. You’ve changed your look considerably. I assume Mybloglog has a slight problem with your avatar.
Selling Effectiveness Optimization…hmmm…will need to think about that one.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Most of are me thinks…
Reminds me of that funny old article a while back about if a seo should know html..
I would die with know asp php etc… I have some friend doing on site seo via CMS and not code… I’d kill myself..
I always say seo as that is my focus but webmaster suits too…
July 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
LOL
Barry linked to the Cre8tiveFlow blog, that Liz is Chief Editor of. I must show this to the moderators…very funny!
July 16th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
DD… I think to do what you and others do online… there was/is a skillset required to accomplish parts of the task (sic SEO). The search engine challenge was only a part of our overall marketing challenges, but the biggest unknown.
SEO, when we all started, was akin to a black art… almost no set and fast methods or rules. We all taught ourselves and each other through experimentation and sharing our observations on forums. Today most is understood and relatively well documented. This being true… SEO is now, at least to me, just a subset of what needs to be done to succede online.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I know exactly how you feel. Most times when people ask what I do, I just say “I’m a web developer”, but I’m starting to realize that the first thing they think of is, “Oh, this guy just does web design…”
Hopefully, someone will come up with a better label.
As for sharing the knowledge with others, I know all about that too. While living in MA, I taught my next door neighbor (A Music grad student) as much as I could. I talked him into getting his first domain. Then I set up a wordpress blog for him, and hosted it. At that time, he had no clue about making websites. 9 months later, he’s developed 4 other sites on his own, and is totally addicted. He’s even getting to be familiar with PHP.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
What about … “Internet Strategist” with knowledge ranging from coding, design, usability, marketing, SEO/SEM, analytics and anything else you can think of.
It may take up some room on your business cards, but accurate none the less!
To me, you are one of the BEST SEO’s! Nice title though.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
eCopt - I like that “internet strategest”. Good one.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Maybe it’s time to sell this blog
And start a a new one, hehe.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
LOL, Chee Kui, feel free to make an offer I can’t refuse.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I wonder why the “internet marketer” label doesn’t stick? It describes perfectly well the job we do nowadays and anything new will always be accepted under the hood of Internet marketing.
July 17th, 2007 at 8:48 am
The title definitely got my attention. You freaked me out. I give you full credit for my sudden infamy last October when you gave one of my old articles a positive review.
Rand swooped in and wrote a negative response to that article and has ranked for my name ever since (go figure).
You are a very influential force in the SEO community, and I was worried that we were going to lose you. Instead, you are in the process of achieving WebZen and will hopefully continue to grace us with your thoughts and opinions.
July 17th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Heh, Daniel, I remember that little brouhaha I caused with that positive review of your article. WebZen…hmmm… Web Zen Master! Ooh! I like. LOL.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Seo is prettty much for everyone today. You don’t even really need to know html or css even. Most people can just cut and paste this stuff and they have an amazon site within a few minues.
Seo is a big help when done right. Money too of course. Even the best Seo’d site can’t compete with big money advertising. Online one needs to build it and help people find it.
In the real world all you need to do is build it and they will come.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Wow, it’s not often I totally disagree with several sentences in one comment that someone makes on my blog. But I guess this is one of those times, Rogers Place. Although, if I re-arrange your thoughts a bit, then maybe I could agree. Cut and paste SEO certainly won’t compete with big money advertising. But the best SEO’d site certainly can compete. And in the real world, if you build a store in the middle of nowhere, you’d better help people find it.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
DD a great post. I think for a long time many of us have stopped being just SEO’s. We know that the conversion is a much more complex process…now for me teaching isn’t as fun. But if it is fun and profitable, go for it and good luck.
My issue with teaching is this…if you don’t have PASSION, I can teach someone how to do SEO today, but ultimately they will fall behind the newest tactics to maximize their efforts. I talked about it a bit here:
http://www.thinkseer.com/blog/.....007/01/17/
Do you think I am off base a bit? I am bold and opinionated, but I do think that the best SEO’s / Internet Marketers are self taught and don’t take classes, or get trained. Until they teach passion for this crazy, ever changing industry we call Internet marketing, the passionate ones are forever going to perform better than the once trained, possibly certified, and “somewhat into” marketers.
July 17th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Wil, I don’t think you are off-base. Passion is important. You said on your blog “The 1 in 10 succeeds because I gave them a running start, that they learned to love, and ran with it themselves.”
I guess that’s what I think is needed…a running start from someone who’s really been there. If they find the passion, great, and if not, oh well. No doubt my parents would have preferred that I be passionate about what I obtained my college degree in, but I just wasn’t. So maybe that was a waste of time and money. And perhaps some people taking some training classes would also be wasting their time and money if they never found the passion in it.
But what about those that do? I think that running start could be a good thing.
July 17th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Definitely! I too wasn’t very passionate about my time in college either
Wherever this take you have fun and keep writing here!
Thanks!
July 18th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Web Strategist always works if you don’t like “internet marketer”
July 18th, 2007 at 7:02 am
Hi DD
Your blog post certainly got my attention. I believe that SEO has through the years evolved us into becoming more aware of online marketing in general. Your blog post is certainly applicable to me as well. I have experienced this for the past few years and absolutely hate it when someone calls me an SEO. I prefer being called an OMS (Online Marketing Specialist) lol
July 18th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Hi Donna,
How about “Technology Specialist” or no title? There are many of us who wear several hats in the technology world (web designer, developer, seo, etc.), and titles are really just words at the end of the day. At my current company, none of us use titles on our business cards, and I actually find it quite refreshing!
I also want to say “thank you” for helping out the persons family you talk about in this article. This is an extreme act of kindness and generosity, and think you are an amazing person for doing this.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Several years ago I stumbled across forums that discussed seo techniques and lo and behold you, DD, were already there and helping people, newbies in particular, and others…and participating in the general learning process…and learning curve that we’ve all engaged in.
In fact I felt you were the NUMBER 1 helper (and helpful person) on that forum.
So good luck with being a web development mentor. You’ve been one of the best, already, for years.
Dave
July 25th, 2007 at 5:23 am
I guess you are probably (a) SEO 2.0 while SEO as we know or imagine it is being replaced by a new meta discipline.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
You are not an seo.
I realised recently that we are webmasters/web marketers with seo skills.
We buy a domain, build the site, seo the site and then sell the site or let it run and make money.
Seo is very different to that in my opinion
August 13th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Amen!
August 14th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Wow, what a title and what a post! Sorry to hear this, it means you’re really sad (since you say “I’ll always be an SEO in my heart”)
September 10th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Those of us who have been working in the online marketing space long enough realize that there are so many individual factors that combined together generate the results we’re currently achieving.
Although improvement can be made in any one area, true growth can only truly be achieved by understanding the big picture. Those who start looking at more than just their own individual contribution will increase profits by quantum leaps.
I met someone somewhere whose business card said Internet Strategist. I realized that is PRECISELY what we really are now and when I had my business cards reprinted I changed mine from Keyword Advertising Consultant to Internet Strategist specializing in PPC.
We no longer do SEO or PPC or linking or affiliate programs or analytics in a vaccum. We brainstorm an overall Internet Strategy.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I just had my business cards redesigned, Rose, and I don’t have any kind of “occupation” listed. Hopefully, when I hand someone my card, I’ll have a chance to chat with them at the same time. We’ll see…