I consider myself a very normal person. When I was little, I like to disassemble my toys’ pieces to see how they work and then bring them back together again just like any other kid does. OK, even if not all kids do that, I mean, it’s no big deal right? Everybody wants to play. Even grown-ups…
By the time we grow up, what happens? We see ourselves and our friends and siblings take up different interests. One is leaning towards becoming a doctor, the other a teacher, then an engineer and an accountant and so on… And after that, we see an architect who is also a musician or composer, a teacher who is a doctor, an athlete who is also an entrepreneur… We don’t see anything extraordinary about those professions. The world needs teachers, doctors, fire fighters etc.
Then people started to use computers and then the Internet. And then more and more people are using computers and the Internet. These are still the doctors, musicians, teachers, housewives, students etc. And then…came the SEOs…and suddenly there is this biggest “WHAT?!” I have ever seen and heard!
When you bring SEO to the offline world, it’s like a fish out of the water. To make my point, I’ll show you why SEO is not for everybody even without going into the technical SEO terms such as PageRank , robots, search engine or even search engine optimization and SEO itself.
We SEOs talk about:
Writing good content – Your friends and family don’t understand this phrase even if they do know you already own a website. That is because when you say “write” or “writing”, it’s gotta be for a book, a newspaper column, a magazine, thesis, or possibly a script for a movie, TV or theater. Moreover, it was never before followed by the words “good content”, i.e you’re most likely to say, “good script”.
Google – Yes, this word is popular. But, I don’t think it’s hardly been a household word. Mention it in an ordinary conversation and it’s still unlikely that you’ll stay on that topic no matter how much you try. Same with Yahoo! and MSN/Bing.
Keyword – Everybody knows what a “key word” or “keyword” is, even before the Internet existed. The word is basically self-explanatory. So there’s simply no reason to be eagerly talking about keywords anywhere except when the topic is about search engines and again “writing good content”. And, why would the topic be about search engines in an offline world conversation anyway except for talking about SEO?
Traffic – This word, can never be uttered without explaining that you are actually referring to people visiting websites. Even if the person you’re talking to happens to be computer savvy, I don’t think the word “traffic” alone would ever stand to distinguish between vehicular traffic and website traffic. I.e. what do you think it would mean if you told a fellow SEO “sorry I’m late because of the traffic”?
Optimize – Sure this is another old word. But, does an engineer say he or she will optimize a building? Saying that you are going to “optimize a page” will not be easily understood by your friend when he or she sees that the page is an already beautifully designed piece of work.
It’s amazing how technology makes our lives easier and yet complicated at the same time. Have a great day and remember that it’s good to laugh more.