Taking a broad look at the SEO industry, one thing comes to mind.
The vast majority of content in the SEO industry is too small. It’s focused on the minuscule minutiae:
- sitemaps.xml
- robots.txt
- nofollow
- minuscule speed updates
Yes – at the end of the day, some of these small things above could have a massive detriment or impact
How long will SEOs hem and haw that they only get 1/10th of PPC budget.
SEOs need to grow up, expand, and focus on business metrics.
Instead of selling dubious links and on-page optimization services, think way bigger. Think on a massive scale.
One hour spent reading about optimal models for SEO projections that tie in with annual marketing budgets is better than an hour on tweaking title tags.
These extreme levels of optimization come into play at scale for large sites.
And maybe 5 extra visits from these tiny tweaks is enough to tiny businesses.
But we really need to be talking more about things that move the content much more – talk about one-year, big projects that have a big impact on the company.
Not dinky little SEO audience and maintenance retainers.
It could be I’m seeing this through my own lens, which is definitely true. But when I look at an overview of all posts on Moz.com, or Ahrefs.com, or Backlinko or Search Engine Land – what % of the posts there are about small minor little things – a micro update here, a micro update there – that they are just distracting from focusing on big, large projects that do more for the company, are more inventive, and have a larger impact and ROI.
I think, instead of pitching a small link building campaign of 5 links a month, say “you need 50 links a month to your site to see an impact in a year – this is what you’re going to do, and it will take a big investment”.
I think we need to paint a larger picture, a more creative approach to many SEO-client relationship.
I also think there needs to be a division in nomenclature between micro-level SEO for tiny sites, and larger scale corporate SEO. There needs to be a difference because these are two entirely different mechanisms and engagements. I don’t see enough talk about different approaches – entirely – for totally different markets. We have too many posts on “do h1s still matter” and not enough on “here’s a 6-month SEO gameplan to scale a massive marketplace from 50 million visits a year to 100 million visits a year”.
Trying to shift up my own thinking by looking at a broader picture of a company’s business and marketing strategy, and where the concept of search plays a massive and size-able role.
It’s a constant work in progress.