SEO and Client Education
February 07, 2005 | 
18 Comments
Roger Johansson recently published a great post about the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It’s a nice read, but probably nothing too new for most of us, but it got me thinking about client education and how we can better communicate complicated, but usually highly beneficial (to all parties involved) ideas.
Roger talks about clients asking after SEO and I’ve been seeing this quite a bit myself. Often their ideas, which have probably been seeded by one of the shady SEO marketing companies out there, are well off target.
This comes back to being better equipped and able to educate our clients and potential clients on these things. I’m not sure what the root problem but for some reason when us techie folks try to communicate with marketing folks and decision makers it seems to come out quite awkward. There are so many ways we could help people with marketing efforts like SEO, if we could only get past that communication barrier.
I, for one, am trying to get some articles written and published outside of my regular circles. I want to get into marketing rags, and things like that. It’s a different style for a different audience and it has its challenges. We’ll see how it works out. In the mean time, if anyone has any good ideas on how to better communicate and educate our clients, stakeholders and decision-makers, I’d love to hear ‘em.
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Comments
1. Agustin said:
Being a techie myself, I’d have to say that a large cause of the problem is that we forget who the audience is. Just because we care about separation of content and presentation and all the rest doesn’t mean they do.
Something I’ve learned for explaining technical topics to non-technical people is that acronyms are to be avoided like the plague. Even if you explain what HTML stands for and what it is, every time you say HTML, your audience will have to stop and remember what it is, and by that time they’ve probably missed two sentences.
Another tip: people learn a concept more easily if they are already familiar with a similar one. For example, a basic summary of Google’s PageRank: the most famous web sites appear nearer the top. How does a web site become famous? By having other sites talk about it. By using the word “famous”, you take it out of the internet context and into a social one– perhaps invoking thoughts of famous movie stars–, one that people are more familiar with.
Looking to rank highly for specific keywords, say, “purple cats”? Then your web site has to be famous for purple cats. You can have the most famous web site for cars, but if you want visits from people interested in purple cats, then you have to be famous for purple cats. That means that you have to talk about purple cats, and that other sites that talk about you should mention that you’re into purple cats.
Posted on February 7, 2005 02:02 PM | #
2. Alistair Lattimore said:
I generally try a depth test on the people I’m talking to. If they understand the first few simpler things I have mentioned, it allows me get to the point a lot quicker. If they are someone that isn’t technology aware, I generally draw analogies between what the technology does and something they understand, then give reasons for why a,b,c are better than x,y,z.
What always makes it very difficult is when they aren’t technology aware, but are ignorant to it as well, at which point you have to go back to grass roots. Inevitably, it probably doesn’t matter what or how you explain the concept, it is always going to fall on deaf ears.
Al.
Posted on February 7, 2005 02:37 PM | #
3. Robert said:
I am so going to use Agustin’s “purple cats” example next time I try to talk SEO with the decision makers at my job.
At my job, part of the SEO problem is that the company sometimes seems to forget about the audience – the decision-makers all know so much about the business that I think they forget that most people don’t think about this stuff all day.
Instead of using real-world examples of keyphrases we might want to rank well for, I can use purple cats. Once the decision-makers understand that we need to talk about purple cats on our web site, maybe I can wring some content out of them.
Posted on February 7, 2005 02:58 PM | #
4. Tom said:
You should try to get into those like Business Link newsletters. I read a letter recently about how web designs are poo-poo heads because all they care about is design (really?) you should be trying to sell your product and every time someone visits your site and they dont buy something, well thats a missed sale…
Anyway, perhaps you have some like local business marketing confab/newsletter/thing that might be the place to start.
Posted on February 7, 2005 03:54 PM | #
5. Dave P said:
I’m not a big fan of the “purple cats” idea, although I understand what it is you’re saying, Augustin. Try this one:
I think of a search engine more as an advanced popularity contest. Back in high school, polling the student body would easily tell you who the star athlete, class clown and school slut were.
Try as they might, no individual person could “force” the student body to change their opinions without doing things that contributed directly to that they were trying to acheive.
For instance, if I was a nerd but wanted to be seen as a jock, I would need to do things the hard way: join the football team, work out, and refrain from discussing math problems and star trek.
Sure, I could try and fake my way for a while; eventually though I would be labelled a wanna-be - a fate worse than being a simple nerd.
The same holds true for the internet audience: the modern student body. If you want to be the jock of all websites, you need to join the content team, deliver services with strength, and refrain from straying from you message.
As with the nerd that starts playing sports, the reputation will come after the fact.
Posted on February 7, 2005 04:54 PM | #
6. Ryan Brooks said:
I think the best way to do this is merely to attempt to educate. Writing articles on your corporate sites, providing tips and tricks in your support documentation, and so forth… With my company we’re planning “lunch ‘n learns” for the enterprise clients to help with this process…
Lead by example, I think, it’s the only way to do it.
Posted on February 7, 2005 07:20 PM | #
7. Agustin said:
Robert: I hope it works for you!
Dave P: what is it you don’t like about the purple cats?
Posted on February 7, 2005 08:20 PM | #
8. David Horn said:
I try to explain to people that Google is like a librarian. If you walk up to a librarian and say ‘Travel!’, then he/she has to go away and find you all the books on Travel.
The first thing they’re going to look at is the Book Titles - like page titles on your web site. Then, rather than lugging all the books with travel in their title over to the front desk, they’re going to try to corroborate the title of the book with the content. So, if your content is Travel heavy, you’re in better shape. Better still, if your travel content is ordered in such a way as to make it findable and is clearly (semantically) structured, then this process of corroboration becomes both easier and more accurate.
Obviously, the analogy has drawbacks - a search for travel produces plenty of sites that don’t have travel in the title - but bringing it into a real life / real people setting helps people understand some of the processes involved.
That said, I do like the purple cats and Jocks examples too!
David
Posted on February 8, 2005 01:47 AM | #
9. Philip said:
Excellent point, something I need to remember. Just because I explain it doesn’t mean it doesn’t take them time to process. Thanks!Analogies are also another good way I should start communicating. A techie friend of mine does it all the time (“think of a variable like a cup of water…”)
something the clients need to understand as well… this isn’t instant - it takes a long time for a nerd to earn the respect and to change the long held opinions…looking forward to what more people have to say.
Posted on February 8, 2005 02:04 AM | #
10. Terry said:
I like all your points they are all valid.
A large company can get away with many links pointing to their corporate website and have high page rank with little in the way of “content” in the sense we are talking about. If your a small company though, and you wish to have a presence on the web, you first have to hire someone who is even aware of the basics as we are discussing here. Sadly, in your average town, such a hip web professional may be near impossible to come by.
Once the design is finished and put on the web - without forethought to SEO of any kind - it is very hard to produce any valuable results on the search engines because in most cases a total redesign is probably in order.
Making the site an authority on “purple cats” is all well and good but the company may not have a CMS that allows regular updates by themselves. Launching an SEO campaign could be very costly. They may need to hire a fulltime staff just to add all the “purple cat” info on a regular basis.
Most of them want results without all the work. Sadly, the majority of small companies still view the web as a different type of a brochure, a catalog, or a static advertisement. That’s probably why it is easy for them to get taken to the cleaners by an SEO company. On the other hand for a large fee some of the SEO companies work with the client - and change the markup and content accordingly - for a predefined length in time until they produce the results promised.
Posted on February 8, 2005 08:38 AM | #
11. Robert said:
I’ve been trying Ryan’s suggestion, writing short essays on web topics and circulating them to upper management when I send out my periodic web analytics reports. I keep the essays to one printed page, so they’re likely to be read, but it means I can’t go into much depth with any one essay.
I think of it like beads on a string – each one is simple and easy, but you eventually end up with a finished product.
Anyway, I can tell those essays have had some effect, because I’ve heard vice-presidents talk like they’re concerned with our search rankings. Now if only they would give me some content to help with those rankings…
As for the purple cats idea, I think Dave P is perhaps a little concerned that one could become “famous” for a topic without doing the real hard work. In the real world, fame can be instant, and you can be famous for being bad at something – look at William Hung for an example. As long as we’re trying to be justly famous for purple cats, we should do the hard work.
Posted on February 8, 2005 08:42 AM | #
12. Dave P said:
Augustin: I suppose I should clarify my earlier statement. Terry and Richard came close to touching on my concerns, but I’ll elaborate.
First off, I understand what you mean when you say “you need to talk about purple cats”, but my concern is what your non-techy client hears.
Remember when search engines used keyword meta tags? Search for “Bubbles the Chimp” and the first twenty pages were “Bubbles sex chimp sex….” yadda yadda yadda.
Currently, google places a good deal of weight on content topics and other site links to said topics. However this may not always be the case. Blog spammers are already forcing google’s hand in re-evaluating their techniques.
SEO, in my mind is more about manipulating a specific engine. Telling a client to “talk about purple cats” will work in the current environment; does it acheive the goal though?
If engines begin to focus on other things besides quantity of content, your client may find himself slipping in the rankings. You may see this as reasonable - indeed it is - but your client will be perplexed at why things have changed. “But you said we just had to become famous by talking about purple cats!”
It can come back to bite you. Really, SEO is a shady business at the best of times. The company’s goal is to promote it’s products and services in the long term. No amount of SEO will help them acheive that, without doing other things the hard way. This goes all the way past the web and into their branding, corporate message and actual quality of service.
SEO is, really, a waste of time for the company to think about. As web folk, we take care of ensuring the site is seen by engines (that is important). The comapany’s job is to ensure how their site is seen. You can do that a lot more effeciently by telling them to take any investment they are prepared to make in SEO and apply it to their services, branding, or general reputation building activities.
The web is not a vacuum, it is (as the student body) a reflection of many attitudes of various people. Those attitudes belong to people, and the business needs to influence those people, not google’s algorithim.
As I said, although I understand what you’re saying in the “purple cats” analogy; I think it’s important to explain to clients that SEO is more about Company Reputation that technology.
Posted on February 8, 2005 10:29 AM | #
13. Agustin said:
Dave P: thanks for clarifying. You make some really good points. I didn’t consciously assume that good content will always yield high search rankings, and you are right that it’s not necessarily a safe assumption.
I also agree that an SEO company is a bit like a PR consultant (improving reputations). Borrowing from your example, an SEO can be used to make a nerd look like a jock (or vice-versa) but if the transformation isn’t honest, it won’t stick. At least, I hope it doesn’t.
Posted on February 8, 2005 01:52 PM | #
14. Dave P said:
an SEO can be used to make a nerd look like a jock (or vice-versa) but if the transformation isn’t honest, it won�’t stick.
Exactly. “Wanna-bes” will be viewed by search engines as damage and will be routed around - perhaps not now, perhaps not even in 6 months, but eventually, they will be replaced by what the engine views as “proper” results.
The goal is to be one of these “proper results” and not damage.
Nobody can sell you that. As a company, you’ll need to do that yourself, otherwise what’s the point of being in business?
Posted on February 8, 2005 05:51 PM | #
15. Tinuviel said:
Dave P: I would refrain from using the “school slut” example, as that was an extremely sexist thing to say, and using it in the business world, especially around females, would be very unprofessional.
I have to confess, I don’t really understand what Robert was trying to say about “purple cats”. Perhaps I was focusing too hard on the phrase, because it’s so odd, and ignoring the concept he was explaining.
Posted on February 9, 2005 06:44 AM | #
16. Dave P said:
Just FYI: I would taylor the example to the audience… “school slut” isn’t something I would say in the boardroom in most cases… but in a room full of Type A men… this may go over surprisingly well…
Posted on February 9, 2005 11:30 AM | #
17. Robert said:
Tinuviel, the original “purple cats” comment is the first comment, from Agustin:
He uses the example as a way to explain SEO and ranking concepts without getting technical. I don’t think he meant to turn this into a discussion of hypothetical felines. :)
Posted on February 9, 2005 02:48 PM | #
18. Paul Larson said:
What a great resource! I can’t help but think of a phone call I got from a client asking “Why aren’t we number 1?” Needless to say, they were in an extremely saturated market.
It certainly wasn’t their fault. I never gave them a reality check, so how were they to know the truths of SEO? That was my job, and any Web developers job.
Now I at least tell the client a) SEO is a lot of work and b) It’s very unpredictable. Johannson gives far more reasons that can be relayed to any potential SEO client.
Posted on February 10, 2005 09:14 AM | #
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