Making information work

I am preparing a half day seminar for a bunch of great editors in the art of “writing for search engines”. I have spent significantly more time than I am paid to spend, but with good cause: I have been racking my brain over the challenge of communicating this monster that SEO is to people who, in essence, are journalists.

Not that journalists are mentally challenged or anything, just that I need to consider the wording I use - naturally, talking about H1-tags and XML-sitemaps will not make me any friends. I have found that buzzword bingo:ing will alienate a crowd quicker than almost anything.

So, I have been working on making SEO simple. Really, really simple. And just now, just a minute ago, I fell for it! I actually had an epiphany - I saw my presentation and realized that is actually IS simple.

First, this made me happy. Now, I am sad. I am starting to realize the horridness of the SEO sales peoples advantage taking of a knowledge gap compared to the average buyer.

I wish that, from now on, each and every SEO pitch will begin with the magic words “SEO is not rocket science. It is not magic. It is technology and content in harmony, and it is hard work.”

I tried this, pre-epiphany, with this great client of mine, and I beat out all big agencies, practically because of this statement. I really hope that the days of SEO sales being of a pushy snake oil are over.

And I will do my part. I am meeting with a colleague in the field tomorrow (much bigger than my little agency), to have some resource sharing discussions. I am glad that this opportunity has risen, but not primarily for the obvious business benefits but rather for the fact that this might be the first sign that the Swedish SEO market is turning into the warm, sharing and caring SEO market I left back in San Diego.

When competitors share, everyone wins.

David seminar, SEO