This is my view of SEO, some people argue it, but these people are mostly ideologists (or developers). CEOs at the other hand just love this little speach. Most of it will be allready clear to people working in our business, but i find it very usefull to explain it to every client (over and over again) at the beginning of a consultancy.

“SEO is the business of getting found, even if the users didn’t know that they were looking for you all along.“

Highlighting the important implications of this sentence:

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is

• a business
• of getting found
• for brand terms
• for product (and product purchasing) related terms

Why is SEO important: Search is the most performed action on the internet (with email as a close second).

Scope of SEO:  Every page accessible (prior to the login) of a site with a commercial intent. If your site has no commercial intent, you can still do SEO for fun (I do sometimes), but for real hard-fisted competitive SEO, you must have a site with a commercial intent. Commercial means not necessarily that you sell something, but that you want the user to reach your site because you want him to take a desired action (subscribing to a newsletter, getting the “right” targeted information, making the right vote, etc).

To clarify it once again:

SEO, search engine optimization, is a business!

There's a start point and a goal you want to reach. Money is a great measurement, but you can also calculate with leads, registrations, active users, …

You need to know your start point. Only when comprehensive web measurement is installed can you can start with SEO. Google Analytic has the best return on investment (It’s free and quite powerful). Web analytics is not a part of SEO but a necessary prerequisite. Really, never ever start without it, because you need to know where you are if you want to reach where you are going. (Plus, you should know when you are there.)

SEO is a business with milestones. You can identify what the issues are, what the competitive situation is, what you need to do next, and what value this milestone has.

And most importantly, you can (and you must) attach a price tag to the actions you need to take to achieve your milestones and ultimately your goal.

SEO is

• not a black art
• not any other kind of art
• not white hat magic
• not black hat magic
• not a science
• and definitely not free traffic

• a business
• with a start point and a goal
• with milestones that have estimated and real costs and values

Thx for your screentime!

Franz Enzenhofer,

http://www.facesaerch.com/blog/