You know, the search industry has been around for several years now, and it never ceases to amaze me how little marketing professionals know about it. In my business, we work with hundreds of companies of all shapes and sizes. They all have access to the same Internet we do, but amazingly, they find ways to stumble into false information about Search.
I can’t tell you how many times we come across potential clients and competitors who still believe meta tags are all there is to search, or that “hits” are a good measure of success. (For those of you who don’t know, meta tags have little to no bearing on a site’s rankings, and hits are a garbage number).
What I want to know is how long is it going to take for this industry to grow up to the point where this kind of junk isn’t peddled anymore? There are lots of efforts going on to educate the masses on search, I’ve listed a few below:
Search Engine Strategies
SMX
SEMPO
Cleveland SEO
TKG Search Marketing Seminars
These efforts are primarily dominated by professionals who want to educate marketing professionals on how to do things the right way.
There are also, and have been for years, lots of discussion boards, forums etc. on the topic of search. Clearly though, high level executives aren’t likely to take the time out of their day to get involved in these things. They are more effective for those of us in the Search Industry to discuss and learn.
Those of us in the industry that actually care about our clients and the market, need to commit some time and energy to educating people and cleaning up our industry. Again, there are many good efforts working toward this end now, just a few are listed above.
I think a good place to start is to compel those in the web development industry, no matter how big or small, that are offering Search Marketing: If you want to offer it, take the time to learn it. If you don’t REALLY know it and do it, then don’t offer it and take the junk info off of your site. All you are doing is misleading potential clients and demonstrating to true search marketers that you’re part of the problem.