You know what I’ve realised, recently?
I’ve realised that some folks are scared of SEO.
They’re scared of it and as a consequence, they refrain from committing to it.
Initially, when this thought dawned on me, I almost dismissed it as something that’s untrue.
But then I pondered on it a little more and realised that SEO is a channel that’s still new in marketing.
Now, marketing as a whole can be a little daunting, at times.
Can it not?
You, as a marketer, are tasked with generating income, hell, profit, for the business.
The possibilities are wide and open. And not guaranteed.
Well, this is how it is with SEO.
And with the channel being a specialist channel, it’s fair to say that it can be daunting to non-SEOs.
I understand. I get it.
SEO can be so daunting that it immobilizes you. It scares you.
It scares you from working the channel.
It scares you from working with SEOs.
It scares you from investing in SEO.
Well, SEO is an open channel. It’s not a secretive one. It’s open to all.
I know it has a reputation of being a ‘black magic’ type of art.
I know people are unaware of how search works.
I know wielding a channel that’s so wide and vast in what there is to know of it is scary.
But these things are problems that you can, indeed, tackle and overcome.
And, as someone who’s trained people in SEO, and informed people of SEO, I can tell you, you have more in common with SEOs than you may be aware of, and as such, you already have more understanding of the channel than you may realise.
Now, why do I say this…?
SEO is optimisation. Optimisation, when you break it down is simply making improvements.
If you’ve improved upon something in your life, you’ll be able to understand SEO.
And at this point, let me also say…
…unless you’re an SEO or aim to be an SEO, you don’t need to work the channel, hands-on.
As a non-SEO, you simply need to understand the channel.
Understanding the channel means being aware of how the elements connect.
You need to be aware of how site speed affects SEO.
You need to be aware of how backlinks affects SEO.
You need to be aware of how the actions of people who work on your site affect SEO.
This is doable. This is understandable This can be realised.
The thinking that SEO is a black magic art is not the way you’ll want to think about SEO.
SEO requires more than SEOs to be a success.
It is not in any way or shape an isolated channel.
It should not be treated as an isolated channel.
Thinking of the channel as daunting tends to lead to its isolation.
And this is an unfortunate mistake to make.
Why is this a mistake…?
Let me give you a real-life example…
You could have SEO who spend months, literally months, convincing your PR department to be included in a future campaign.
After succeeding with this department, SEO works with your Content team to create and launch a page on your site to use as part of the SEO/PR integrated campaign.
The campaign goes well, 3 months go by and someone from your Web Editing department think it’s a wise idea to delete the campaign page.
Well, something so innocent could impact the backlinks to an important category page, causing the page to drop in rankings for its head targeted keyword.
Lower rankings, less traffic. Less traffic, less conversions.
SEO will now have to spend their time trying to get the keyword ranking back on-par.
All of this could have been avoided if the Web Editing team had simply spoken with SEO.
It could have been avoided if SEO was more included in marketing activities.
It could have been avoided if the Web Editing team had more awareness of SEO.
All you really need, for non-SEO, is to ensure that they have an awareness of SEO, not to do SEO but to simply avoid negatively impacting the channel with their actions.
I tell you, the vast majority of the time, SEOs work to rectify mistakes caused by non-SEOs.
We firefight issues. A lot.
All the time spent doing this takes away from the time we could be spending making improvements with the channel.
You wanna make progress with your SEO, quicker, have a preventative measure in place.
Look to improve the awareness of SEO across your entire business.
Everyone who has a touch-point with your website should have an understanding of SEO.Everyone. No exaggeration. Everyone!
This isn’t to say that everyone will know SEO within a year. There really shouldn’t be an endpoint to improving the awareness of SEO within your business.
SEO awareness should be an always-on agenda.
This is how you make the channel less daunting.
It’s also a great way to ensure that SEOs and non-SEOs communicate and work closely together.
This is truely how you have optimisation in place in your business.
When you get to the point where SEOs aren’t firefighting anymore, and you see the collaboration between SEOs and non-SEOs, you’ll consistently be making improvements on your site.
Proof of this will be in the rankings, traffic, conversions that you receive from the channel.
So if you find SEO daunting, liaise more with your SEOs.
I can guaran-damn-tee you that the more you liaise with the channel, the more you’ll want to know of the channel.
Heck, you may even want to be an SEO. This, afterall, is how many SEOs became an SEO.