Why is it that SEO is so hard to sell or explain? This question is something that pops up in blogs and in general conversation almost daily in our industry. Could it be that it’s the name that scares people off? I mean let’s look at what SEO is at the very basic level:

• Research and analysis of words/phrases
• Content writing and/or enhancing
• Website structuring/planning
• Implementation of conversion elements (e.g., 800 numbers, buy now buttons, etc)
• Traffic based statistical analysis

Disclaimer: In no way is this list meant to discredit or take away from the work involved or the complexity of the industry, it’s just my opinion on what SEO boils down to. I may also have missed something, so please feel free to suggest in the comments anything I may not have touched on.

If you said to any business person that you do any single item from that list, there would be a very high likelihood that they would understand. It might take one extra sentence for some people to get it, but for the most part nothing in that list is foreign to most people. So why is it that when we lump all of these things together and call it SEO, people start scratching their heads and asking why they would need that? All you’ve done is made a category out of a group of action items and suddenly it’s voodoo to them.

Maybe SEO is a misleading name. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is kind of backwards if you think about it. I mean, you aren’t optimizing the search engines, you are optimizing FOR the search engines. Does the name lead people to believe that we have some control over the search engines (leaving PPC out for now)? Does it lend itself to questions like “So you can get me to the top of Google?,” or “Can you guarantee me top 10 rankings?”?

Perhaps the name is where the problem is. So why not call it Website Optimization, or Optimizing Websites for the Search Engines (too long, I know!). However simple these names might sound, they might just get a few less head scratches. If I came up to you and said I’m going to enhance your website so you can be more visible in Google, you would get the idea, right? You may not know exactly what I am going to do, but you know it involves tinkering with your website so you stand a chance of being seen in Google. The name in no way implies I have control over the search engines or can do anything to the search engines to make you more visible.

I realize that a name change from SEO to something else is a bit farfetched, but perhaps from a sales perspective the approach should or could be changed? Just because you sell something that doesn’t have the best name doesn’t mean you need to use the name all over the place. Take, for example, the used car industry. Lately, instead of saying Used Cars they have been calling them Pre-Owned because it has slightly less negative connotation. SEO or Website Enhancement services can be the same thing: it’s just one is easier to comprehend without much more explanation.