The web marketing community, and specifically many folks in the search field have recently been engaging in lots of conversations about the industry's nomenclature. I think these discussions are excellent to have and I'm glad we're openly communicating with one another on the topic. If there's to be a shift or a progression in how online marketers focused on non-paid channels describe themselves and their work, I believe rigorous debate is a great starting point. And, as part of that belief, I want to share my views on the topic.
Considering taking the leap and having my official title changed to Inbound vs. SEO
— Justin Briggs (@justinrbriggs) February 23, 2012
I've been in SEO a long time; at the end of this year, it will have been a decade since I joined my first SEO forum and attempted to learn how to capture the magical, free traffic that engines like MSN, Yahoo! and the emerging Google could send. In 2005, after experiencing the remarkable, positive impact SEO could have, I went from a practitioner to an evangelist. I loved SEO and I still love it. I love the complexities of search technology, the overwhelmingly vast sea of technical tactics, the individual stories, the packed conference-hall bars, the dark stories of spam and the illuminating tales of white hat triumphs. But, most of all, I love the people. I have met most of my best friends, hundreds of people I wish I saw more of and literally thousands of awesome individuals all around the world thanks to this field.
To say I'm a raving, fanatical, lunatic SEO evangelist is putting it mildly.
But over the past 3 years, I've been gradually coming around to the viewpoint that in spite of my personal adoration for all things organic search, the outside world of marketing departments, startups, small-medium businesses and individual consumers doesn't see it that way. Last night, a startup friend of mine was over, reviewing a slide deck I'm building for another round of fundraising pain, when he received a spam email trying to buy some links on his site.
"Ha. You SEO guys never quit do you?"
Then today, in an interview with a candidate, I asked her about her background in SEO and she replied, "I told my husband about SEOmoz and he said 'SEO company? Watch out, those guys are spammy and untrustworthy." We talked through it, of course, but if you're in the field, you surely encounter this feedback daily, too.
There's the problem. No matter how many cities I fly to, or times I evangelize the great things SEO can do, no matter how many blog posts or retweets or guest articles, it will always carry with it the taint of manipulation and inauthenticity. Even from those who know better. Even from those who've invested in SEO. And always, always from the mainstream and tech media.
So what's to be done? Should we give up using the acronym? Perhaps shift to something like "get found online," "search engine visibility" or "content optimization?"
In my opinion, those aren't real options. SEO is an established practice and it's an established, descriptive term. For millions of people around the world, it carries the accurate meaning - the practice of improving a brand's visibility in and traffic from search engines. That meaning may be negatively tarnished by frustrating and inaccurate brand sentiments, but even if we could shift to a new phrase, this new moniker would undoubtedly attract the same sorts of bad actors who cloud SEO's perception today.
For better or worse, SEO is here to stay.
But I'm not blind to the emerging reality: a shift in terminology is accompanying the growth in responsibilities of professional SEOs. I did some simplistic LinkedIn research recently that's illustrated below:
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That figure above shows overlap between these various fields and skillsets, and it's my opinion that we're going to see considerably more overlap between them in the years to come. To be an effective social media marketer, you must understand content, analytics and SEO. To be a great SEO, you need social media, content marketing, analytics and CRO skills. The "specialist/generalist marketers" - those who excel at a particular facet but have competence in all of them - are best poised to win in the upcoming decade of marketing.
We need a way to describe this combination - it's simply too cumbersome and not descriptive enough to say one's job is: "Content creation, combined with investments in both the technical and outreach-based tactics in channels such as organic search, social networks, blogs and other websites, measured through analytics and tuned with conversion rate optimization." That's a mouthful, but it's getting to be a more and more common mouthful, because this process needs to be explained!
Some say "SEO" already encompasses these:
@randfish I still believe SEO encompasses all those things. If not, then Internet Marketing. Remember when that used to sound cutting edge?
— AJ Kohn (@ajkohn) March 9, 2012
This is hard, because in many ways, I agree. If you're a modern SEO and you don't also embrace content creation, social media marketing, link outreach for brand and direct traffic value (beyond their algorithmic contributions), PR, CRO and analytics, you're probably not achieving all that you could by combining these practices (at least a little). And yet, there's no way to explain to the outside world (even those in web marketing but not directly tied to SEO) that "search engine optimization" also includes "social media" or "conversion rate optimization" or "public relations" or "content marketing." SEO necessarily equates to search engine-based stuff. Social media and other practices may have direct and indirect positive influences, but to an outsider, SEO will never mean all of these things, and saying you do "SEO" will never carry the meaning of that bolded sentence above.
Hence, we need a term/phrase that accurately describes this combination (but is not "Internet Marketing" since that phrase encompasses vastly more than what we're trying to get across, paid channels in particular).
I've been a personal fan of the concept behind Inbound Marketing for a long time - that we should earn our customers' attention rather than interrupting them by buying it. I gave a talk about inbound for startups last December in Silicon Valley:
If you skip to 7:05 or so in the video, you can see the start of my talk, one of the better ones I've given in the past year.
I recognize that not everyone in the marketing and search field feels as positive as I do toward the phrase "inbound marketing." But, I am seeing nearly everyone adopt the principles behind it, which include:
- Combining the practices of content creation and conversion optimization to earn visitors' trust and their business
- Jointly leveraging the channels of search, social, blogs, PR, referring links, email and word-of-mouth to promote this content
- Using sophisticated analytics practices like first-touch and multi-touch attribution to better understand the true value of your content and your visitor sources
I asked on Twitter last week about alternatives to "inbound marketing" that still mean the same thing - narrow enough to exclusively focus on free channels of web-based customer acquisition (which terms like "Internet marketing" or "digital marketing" wouldn't), yet broad enough to include the items mentioned above. Two other suggestions seemed widely-adopted enough to consider: "earned media" and "organic marketing." I ran a comparison of these across several services:
That chart above compares keyword searches on LinkedIn, SimplyHired, Google News, Google's AdWords Tool (for exact matches) and Topsy's Analytics. To be fair, all of these trail behind the individual tactics like "SEO," "social media," or "blogging," (as I noted above, they're not meant to replace those terms, but rather to explain the marketing practice that combines them). Inbound is clearly many steps ahead of the other two, though "earned media" has a lot of traction in the c-suites of large enterprises and publishers.
Even if inbound marketing isn't the term that wins the lexicon battle, I believe the principles behind it are sound. They work. And they earn outsized returns to investments in most paid marketing channels or myopically singular investments on search, social or content alone. That's a message I've been working to refine and spread for some time now.
Many of you reading this blog likely know that I started a personal project with my friend Dharmesh (from Onstartups & Hubspot) called Inbound.org. It's a site that seeks to highlight some of the best content around the marketing world. Along with that, I'm putting more effort into broadening my expertise in fields like content marketing, social media, CRO and PR, and when I talk about it publicly, I call it inbound marketing. Many other organizations, from software firms like Wordstream and Optify to agencies like TrustE, Weidert, Kuno Creative and Volinsky to blogs like Distilled, Kiss Metrics and Search Engine Land are using this language, too.
I wouldn't say the terminology has overwhelming adoption, nor that it's necessarily won the market, but I would argue that the concept and principles are unstoppable and need a name. I don't think explaining that SEO means a bunch of other non-search-engine-related marketing practices is viable, nor do I think it's practical to explain the full concept every time you want to refer to it. SEO, in my opinion, isn't going anywhere, but it has tactical allies today that didn't exist 5 years ago, and I hope that some terminology encompassing these techniques takes root.
TL;DR - SEO is great as is. It doesn't need a new name. The combination of all free/earned/organic/inbound tactics needs a name of some kind. "Internet Marketing" is too broad. "SEO" far too narrow. I like "inbound marketing" for now.
As always, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the trends of marketers focused on inbound/organic/free channels and the emerging use of "inbound marketing," itself. I'll do my best to contribute to the discussion in the comments, too :-)
I think it's time for those in SEO to get over being worried about any "taint" that they fear SEO carries. Because none of it has slowed down the demand for SEO from companies big and small. Can we finally just move on? Can we finally stop worrying that "something must be done" to save the industry, when clearly after 15 years, all that worry hasn't stalled it one bit.
It pains me as much as anyone that many people view SEO as being the worst parts of what they see, some dumbass firing off link requests using automated software or link spamming their blog. But the SEO pros know better. Those seeking SEO pros find better. Let's just get on with things.
Concocting some new term is unlikely to work. It's not like this hasn't been tried before.
Inbound marketing obviously isn't the term to replace it, because SEO is part of inbound marketing. You can't use that. It's like saying we need a new name for the color "red;" let's use "rainbow." Red is one of the colors in a rainbow, so you can't replace it by calling it the rainbow itself.
I can see the attraction behind pushing the term inbound marketing as a way of saying "online earned media," especially when the concept of "earned media" is new to many internet marketers and make odd sense given that it kind of rings like you've paid for it (which is what I think of for "earned") rather than the idea that it is "organic" in nature, which is what we commonly say in the search world.
Maybe it will catch on. When I went through my own exercise for a Marketing Land column earlier this year, I found people were mixed knowing what it means:
https://marketingland.com/the-name-game-does-sem-equal-paid-search-1196
But just as SEO remains a color in the inbound marketing rainbow, inbound itself is just a collection of colors that are expanded even more in the internet marketing / digital marketing rainbow.
Inbound doesn't include paid channels. Internet marketing and digital marketing, the two most popular terms I've seen used, do.
Those channels, by the way, need to be considered, too. If you say that a modern SEO should know inbound, then an inbound marketer better darn well know internet marketing, because some of those paid channels can have an impact on what you do in inbound.
This all brings me back to when SEOs first struggled with paid. They didn't know if they were supposed to do both. Was paid a part of SEO?
It wasn't. And inbound isn't part of SEO. And you're not a bad SEO if you don't do all of inbound. If you specialize in just SEO, that's fine. In fact, no one is going to excel trying to do all of inbound within the trenches. You won't have the time. But a good SEO will be aware of the other channels that inbound and internet marketing encompass and work with those for help.
Amen.
point a la ligne :)
Finally you have expressed clearly what I've tried to explain, unsuccessfully, I'm my comments :)
+1 :)
Holy smokes yes.
But the problem is that SEO is like an ice cube in a bowl of soup. It's relevance has diminished greatly since I started working in SEO ten years ago. Whilst there will still room for smart people to do smart SEO activity I think there will be less and less work for SEO professionals given what is going to happen in the next few years. For the SEOmoz community, I'd implore them to look beyond SEO to keep earning a good living!
SEO has gotten more relevant, not less relevant, over the past 10 years. The number of searches has risen. The ways people search through vertical outlets or mobile devices has increased. The options for SEO, from sitemaps to rich snippets, has increased.
I think what you really mean is that the overall way that people find sites has increased, so that SEO seems less important. But even that isn't correct.
Think of traffic a site gets as being a pie. In the past, search was one of the major slices. Maybe 50% of your traffic came from it. Then along comes social media. Now you have all this new traffic coming from social, so that your search slice reduces to 25%.
That doesn't mean that the search slice is necessarily smaller, that it's less traffic than in the past. Almost certainly, it's more. It's just that the pie itself got larger. All this new social traffic appeared, turning your 6" pie into a 20" one. That 25% for SEO of the bigger pie is still more than the 50% of the smaller one.
These are all just example figures. But the point is that traffic sources have gotten more diverse, and that's good. For a publisher, you want a diverse set of sources. But for an SEO, that doesn't mean you run out and abandoned SEO because it seems "less important." It's still way important and more complicated than ever.
It's also more dependent on social than ever before, so you really should either know social or work with someone who does.
But for the individual, there's only so much you can do. If you're tasked with SEO, and you decide to do more "inbound," you face a balancing act. Maybe the individual gets the right mix going. Maybe they work with others. But you don't just give up one aspect, especially if your primary job is SEO.
This is a good point, but what about traffic originating from search engines that have used social as a heavy influencer? That's more like a hybrid slice in the pie, right?
If it comes from free listings in search, that's SEO. Social is a different activity, but one that can influence getting those SEO listings.
All this talk of pie is making me hungry. I think we are clear that when we talk about SEO, we are both talking about that band of activity related to getting better rankings. (What "better ranking" means in the world of geo and user personalised results is another topic.) I get what you are saying - bigger pies mean bigger slices, even when you have to slice the pie more times. And site stats support that view. So my point is that SEO is of diminishing importance when considering the whole not just in quantitative terms, but also qualitative ways, assuming that we agree that SEO is the same activity it was 5 years ago, and don't consider for example, social media maangement as SEO because it generates incoming links! I'm saying that if you want to provide a service to a business to help them do well online, concentrating on SEO is probably not enough to help them beat their competitors, which is the goal that interests that business. The recent announcement by Google to start penalising "over optimised sites" is, I think another pointer that SEO as a standalone activity is not sufficient to keep your clients happy, and therefore keep your clients.
Aaahhhh, blimey. Ball out of park!!!
Just my two cents, Rands post doesn't seem to be suggesting inbound marketing should replace SEO, in fact, I think he says
"For better or worse, SEO is here to stay."
To me inbound marketing (I am not saying I agree, if you read my comments above, I am not sure about the term) is a term used to describe a more general role. This is nothing new for people who work online. There are consistently new job titles popping up, community manager, social media strategist etc etc.
The conversation seems to have gone towards inbound marketing as a replacement for SEO, but I didn't get that from Rands post. I don't think anything will replace SEO, people get it's about search engine visibility for websites. But for those who say SEO also means CRO, also means lead generation, also means social media optimisation etc etc. I don't agree - you can't redefine SEO because you want it to include all of those things. It's a pretty specific term. For me Online Marketing is probably a better fit for a role that involves a lot of different mediums.
Dead On. Great response.
I can't edit now, as the edit time has gone, but let me add that I didn't take this piece to mean that rand was suggesting that SEO should be called "inbound marketing." I've just seen some people in general confused and wondering if "inbound" should be a new name for SEO.
Two separate issues. Does SEO need a new name (me, no). Do we need a name for organic/earned activities to generate traffic online (me, maybe, maybe it's inbound, though people seem mixed on that).
That's exactly what this post says, too, Danny. Does SEO need a new name? NO. Does organic/free/earned marketing/media need a name? I think so. Inbound is my favorite of the bunch right now.
(NOTE: This reply would appear to cover about 60% of the comments here, so please consider it a reply to all of them) :-)
Thanks Danny, 'digital marketing rainbow' is now suck in my head. Great comments though. Agree 100%
I've been calling all of this Internet marketing for a long, long time. That's what it is: Building your company using the internet for smarter lead generation, customer acquisition, branding and reputation management.
Now, we have to come up with another term?!
I'm going along because suddenly we've got clients coming to us with Shiny Thing Syndrome looking for Inbound Marketing. But when the heck are people going to wake up and understand that this is all just marketing?! That you don't need a new term, or a new mousetrap, or a new anything to grow a business?
Frustrated as hell,
Ian
I'm with you, Ian. I've no desire whatsoever to become the Chilean Sea Bass* of marketing. Nobody will ever see an "inbound" next to my name. At least, not one that I put there.
* Real name: Patagonian Toothfish
I for one would LOVE to eat Patagonian Toothfish, just to say I did. It sounds so macho.
But Internet Marketing describes a lot. There are a lot of different functions that can sit within an online marketing team. It's difficult to build a superstar online marketing team if everyone just has marketing as their job title. How do you find the CRO guy, or the PPC, or the SEO guy or the inbound guy who manages part of this. Internet marketing has grown up a lot and I think it needs to be a multi discipline function.
I think inbound marketing is a great term to describe what Rand discusses above. But I also think (party due to Rand and Hubspot), it's just becoming a buzz word that people see as a good thing to latch onto to pick up clients. I have seen lots of new "inbound marketing" agencies pop up who are just offering general services.
For people who work across content, search engine optimisation, social and CRO, SEO doesn't make sense as a job title. Your dashboards look at all traffic, they look at leads, sales, etc etc. I've always liked traffic optimization, but I guess inbound is good to distinguish that person doesn't manage paid advertising.
Sorry, but I see no distinction between inbound marketing and internet marketing. If it's different, then why is inbound 100% digital? Why doesn't it include offline?
I haven't seen a single 'inbound' agency that does outdoor display, direct mail, or anything else.
Inbound = internet = permission marketing = marketing
Specialists on your team have titles like SEOs, PPC specialists, analysts, copywriters, etc.. Just like always. A marketing team has always had specialists.
Like I said, I'm not going to fight the term. It's a done deal. I just wish marketers put as much effort into their clients as they did into inventing new terms for themselves.
AH! I can understand you Ian, And I can agree with you when you say that Internet Marketing agencies always had specialists inside,
Internet Marketing is a perfect definition, I love it. But Internet marketing can be also Paid Search, Retargeting, Display Advertisement, or are not they marketing done using digital assets? All respectable tactics, but they cannot be surely defined as Permission Marketing.
I think that we are not focusing well the reason why some people think that maybe is needed a new term, which can describe in the most effective way what it should be the most correct way to generate qualified organic traffic for a website. And maybe it is not needed a new term, but a new powerful proposition of the best practices that Rand and others are describing as Inbound.
And maybe you are right, a new term is not needed. But what I see as needed is a new definition of the terms we use to describe ourselves, as a reflection of the new different ways marketing should be done online.
Definition by Seth Godin, who coined that term:
"Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them."
Good display, smart retargeting and quality paid search all fit. They also drive inbound, sometimes more effectively than SEO, sometimes not. 'Inbound' or 'internet' or 'permission' marketing is using all of these tools, plus e-mail, plus social, plus whatever is on the horizon to help customers make smart decisions about things that will provide value.
Cutting other stuff out of inbound would mean that inbound marketing is a less effective, less considered, less well-thought-out version of internet marketing.
Rand puts forward a very intelligent argument, and properly executed, marketing is great no matter what you call it. But Inbound is not a new or different thing, nor is it a change in the way we do marketing. It's just a different label. Which may be exactly what he's talking about: SEO is hard to sell. Inbound may be easier. So a lot of folks are trying it.
So, I actually think you have made some great points in the above Ian. They have actually forced me to go away and put my thinking hat on to see where I stand. I am not sure now. I like the point
"Good display, smart retargeting and quality paid search all fit."
I didn't really consider that before. I work across all mediums and just see myself as online marketing, although I did like Inbound when discussing permission based traffic. But I had always excluded my paid mediums, which I called outbound (as per hubspot).
Although what you call yourself shouldn't be that important (in terms of what results you drive), it actually does matter in terms of how people view you, especially clients or when doing speaking gigs. It shouldn't, but it does (or that's been my experience).
Thanks for the input
I've decided to call it "Ian Marketing" :P
This is a great, great discussion. Thanks for the comments!
...I approve this new title.
I was trying to find the right words to describe my feeling on this, but Ian said it so well already. I couldn't agree more!
Well said. I spend most of my time in paid search of one kind or another, and I get a little hurty when I hear it lumped in with interruption channels. I'd get killed ROI-wise if I didn't think long and hard about what queries I'm listening for in search and whether I can really answer them with my ads and landing pages. A good paid search ad doesn't speak until spoken to...so to speak.
Amen!
Siiiiiigh. "Just when I think I'm out....they pull me back in."
I tried very hard to not respond to this post. I even made it almost 24 hours but I kept looking at these comments and rolling my eyes so I feel compelled to speak up.
Ok, three things.
Honestly, I'm not really interested in arguing nomenclature or semantics.
I already skirted this issue with 5000 words + comments.
I'd rather do some work.
But I will say a lot of the argument from the devout SEO camp comes across as "I've plateaued and I don't want to be responsible for something new." I find that incredibly disappointing because as SEOs I thought we were all about staying on top of change and being in the best positions to stay on top. Why wouldn't you want to be in a better position to do so?
Meh.
-Mike
Lots of thoughts on this matter, so I will try and rattle them off in as incoherent and disorganized fashion as I know how :-)
First, "Inbound Marketing" does not mean what it says. When I say that I do "Search Engine Optimization", people inherently understand that my goal is to optimize for the search engines. They may not know the tactics and methods that are a part of that goal, but at least they know the goal. When someone says "Inbound Marketing", the listener is only aware that it is a form of marketing. But to what does the "Inbound" refer? Is it marketing that intends to bring people inward (doesn't all marketing do that)? Is it marketing that attempts to capture people already moving in an "inbound" direction? (would paid search fall into this categorization). This ambiguity may make it a great buzz word, but in my opinion wreaks of DotCom 1.0 jargon.
Second, the concept to which we are attempting to apply "Inbound Marketing" as a title is itself ambigous and loosely related. Let's take specifically Rand's description...
"Content creation, combined with investments in both the technical and outreach-based tactics in channels such as organic search, social networks, blogs and other websites, measured through analytics and tuned with conversion rate optimization"
What kinds of content are fair game? Are commercials content? Why is a social action (tweeting or posting to Google+) considered an Inbound Method when by their very nature it is a Broadcast action? Is it no longer a Broadcast action because you created your own audience through other activities?
Finally - and get ready for it - here is my rant.
I think that "Inbound Marketing" is a convenient, nifty way to refer to "fun marketing". It is the marketing that you don't feel too bad about.
What we are doing is wrapping a dog's heartworm pill in bacon and calling it "Inbound Marketing". The only difference between now and 10 years ago is 10 years ago we let someone else cook the bacon and we paid them to put the pill in it (we called it "ad placement"). Now, marketing companies are making the bacon too, mixing it all together, and hoping to come up with the right balance so that at the end of the day we feel like we have been "social" or "creative" or "responsive" and not forget that our job, ultimately, is to get the dog to swallow pill. /rant
If anything, I think we should take SEO out of the equation and just call the rest of it "Indirect Marketing". With SEO, instead of inserting my advertisement into a mail box, I'm putting it on the front page of Google. But all the other stuff you mention - social, blogs, whitepapers, infographics, advertorials, etc. all fall into this indirect method of marketing where the sell is less hard.
When I go home to Iowa, and my mother introduces me to folks, she tells them my job is "computers."
I still think SEO is the better term. For me, it does encompass other skills and disciplines. In fact, it must if you define SEO the right way. It's not about raising the visibility of that site in search engines but about generating productive traffic for that site.
Increasing traffic without increasing actual business level metrics (leads, conversions, revenue) doesn't really do much for a client, does it?
The focus on productive traffic leads a good SEO professional to conversion rate optimization and user experience to name just a few. I made the comparison in my What Is SEO? post recently.
Otherwise it’s like a chef who creates a menu but then has no input on how the food is cooked, the quality of ingredients, decor of the establishment or the presentation of the meal.
I see it as all inclusive which means that terms like inbound marketing often make it more difficult for me to explain, not less. Mind you, my client base is different and I use the reaction to the term SEO as a way to screen potential clients.
One point that does get me thinking is how paid channels fit into this mix. It seems like there's a strong bias that inbound marketing does not include paid channels.
But when I think about how I work, I know that I am frequently working with paid channels, both directly and indirectly. Directly, I am often explaining the value of a simple Google remarketing campaign as a way to make more of that SEO traffic productive. Or I'm educating a client as to why Paid Stumbles are a very cheap way to acheive brand exposure and tell them to look, not at the first interaction, but the long-term value of that exposure (Multi-Channel Funnels FTW!).
Indirectly, don't we often work with our paid search partners to understand the value of certain keywords, particularly which keywords are converting, not to mention what type of ad copy might have won, giving us further cues as to intent and context?
That's the SEO I practice. I often start with a narrow traditional SEO focus within a company but then show that the real value only comes by taking a more holistic approach. Maybe that is Internet Marketing with an SEO focus but I find it a lot easier just to say I'm an SEO, and proud of it.
I think the problem isn't how you see yourself and what SEO means to you, it's what it means to other people, especially all those companies who don't live in our bubble. I am not sure if search engine optimisation means all of the above to them. For most it's just get my website to the top of Google by any means necessery.
That's exactly how I screen clients.
If they think SEO is just a bunch of technical tricks coupled with a link building blitz for the purpose of getting to the top of Google for the 7 terms they have identified as being meaningful, well, those are the clients from hell and I avoid them at all costs.
There are plenty of folks out there who know there's something to SEO and are willing to listen. They're skeptical because they've heard horror stories (from both big agencies and fly-by-night operators) or been burned. Yet, they also see those who have succeeded.
They don't have to beleive it all at first. I just have to get in the door and start producing results and earning that trust. The rest follows quickly in my experience.
As someone who has done SEO for more years than I care to admit, I think as SEOs, one thing we need to do is stop whining and complaining that people see SEO as spammy and manipulative. Every industry has those same issues, yet it seems we're the only ones wasting our time navel gazing about it. Put your big boy/girl pants on, do your job, evangelize when you can, and let that stuff take care of itself.
As for the whole premise of inbound marketing, I think it has some merit, but I wonder if it's not fatally flawed, for a variety of reasons:
1. The value proposition of inbound marketing isn't distinct enough from SEO & Internet Marketing to be truly useful to clients. If a company wants SEO, they will hire an SEO; if they want social, content, analytics, and more (outside a pure search context) why hire an 'inbound marketer' when you can hire an internet marketer and get the paid part too?
2. The number of professionals who have the skillsets necessary to be effective inbound marketers will be dwarfed by the number of people who choose to call themselves inbound marketers, leading to perception problems equal to worse than what SEOs are enjoying now
3. It's going to distract SEOs from their core competency, which is SEO. As a result, the industry is going to suffer from an overflow of SEOs who are 'jacks of all trades, masters of none'
Also a good point. It's worth noting that at the enterprise level - none of this shit matters. It won't be on one person to do SEO/Social/Blogging/CRO - it's a team with people focused on each. The only person with a roll-up title would be the VP/Director who could, in theory, accurately be called the director of Inbound Marketing.... but, knowing how enterprise level companies work, it'll still be Something of... Digital, Online Marketing, etc.
My tweet has appeared in a few conversations about Inbound now, so I guess it's useful to give a bit more context behind it. :)
It was a personal comment about my own position, not a comment about SEO vs. Inbound. My team has specializations such as social media and SEO, but it is no longer accurate to say that I specialize in *just* SEO on a day to day basis. At least not in the same fashion as I did agency side. In thinking about a proper term for what I manage, I've been leaning towards the idea of "Inbound" because how I feel it fits within our team / company structure. It wasn't a remark about abandoning SEO because I feel Inbound is a better title for SEOs.
However, that aside, I do believe that SEO has a negative reputation and that it's a poor term for what SEOs actually do. It's unfortunate.
I would mirror Mike's comment that Inbound Marketing is about synergy, which is a driving force behind me considering Inbound as a name. It's an effective repositioning of the social, PR, and content channels falling under "SEO". I want my team to not think of these as disjointed strategies and to move forward with a more unified strategy. I'd also agree with him that carrying the title of SEO often silos people's perception of my skillset (right or wrong, it does).
I'm not too entrenched in either camp, and people should pick the title that's most effective for them - both to describe the work they do and to be leveraged strategically. For me, SEO is fitting that role less over time.
I loathe the term "inbound marketing" (but I think it's a hipster keep-me-off-the-bandwagon kind of hate) so I tend to reach for "audience development". Organic marketing also resonates with me. There's something about keeping it honest that's important to me, so I tend to call my own services "ethical SEO".
I actually preferred "organic marketing" for a long time, but all our research suggested that everyone (even most folks inside the SEO field!) equated it with organic foods or food products of some kind.
Pretty good example of that here: https://www.google.com/search?q=organic+marketing
Yeah, it was a bit more effective about three years ago before everyone started "going organic". "Inbound Marketing" is just a branded term to me, even though it's not on purpose. I remember HubSpot's first videos with the Google Search box at the end, typing in "inbound marketing". It was a brilliant strategy for promoting Hubspot without saying "visit Hubspot.com" since the term inbound marketing would, in fact, bring you to Hubspot.
But yeah, that's why it's a branded term for me. Doesn't seem appropriate for anyone else to use.... I should probably invent one myself and get it over with. Then again, that's not very SEO-friendly, is it??
I've been trying to articulate what makes me bristle about the inbound marketing term, because it really does fit nicely for the act of getting more business from the web via non-paid channels... I can't put my finger on it but I do feel that Rand and Dharmesh have done such a good job of evangelizing Inbound Marketing that there isn't room for others to contribute. Look. I'm never going to out blog Hubspot and SEOMoz, nor be more helpful than their amazing crews. However, when somebody hears that we do SEO and assumes that it is akin to the 100 spam emails they get daily from offshore seos, we get a chance to differentiate by educating them about how we approach web marketing in a holistic manner... We are Hubspot partners and SEOmoz raving fans, but calling ourselves inbound marketers makes us feel like we've lost our identity.
I (clearly) have a bias here.
I'm saddened to hear that because Rand and I are doing a decent job using the term "inbound marketing" that it dissuades you from using it. Our hope would be the exact opposite.
My hope was that by having a relatively convenient term that does a reasonable job describing what is a relatively new "bundle" of concepts, and having helping educate a bunch of lay people (i.e. customers) about it, it would make people's lives easier.
That was actually my dissatisfaction with the word too. I've been so aware of where the term "Inbound Marketing" came from, that I don't feel comfortable using it. It's "branded" in a way. It's a completely accurate term for describing SEO and to consolidate these efforts, but for me, it goes back to HubSpot and is not a broad definition for just anyone to play around with.
I totally agree, "Inbound Marketing" just sounds terrible, brings up all sorts of spammy/salesman connotations. Both Earned Media and Organic Marketing sound better, or even Earned Marketing. I do understand the need for a term to encompass all organic/"free" methods of marketing, but Inbound Marketing just doesn't do it. We need a term that captures the difficulty and art-form that makes up this segment of internet marketing...
My biggest issue isn't with a new broader category of online marketing, it's that the term "Inbound" is mostly associated with one firm: Hubspot, and now seemingly, SEOmoz.
Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of Hubspot coined the term "inbound marketing". [1] He and Dharmesh wrote a book titled "Inbound Marketing" [2]
If you google, "inbound marketing" it's nearly impossible to find a link on the first page NOT associated with Hubspot. The top 3 are Hubspot owned sites. [3]
I love SEOmoz and the tools are fantastic, but I just can't get behind this "inbound" thing.
SEO is a generic term. It's not tied to a specific company or entity (and lord knows many SEOs have tried). And I think that is a good thing. There are good SEOs and bad. There are good and bad real estate agents. Every industry has their warts.
But as a generic term, SEO has grown mindshare leaps and bounds the past 10 years. There isn't a startup today that doesn't think about SEO as a viable long term customer acquisition strategy. Even SharkTank had a SEO on a few weeks ago and they loved how the guy got "free customers" from SEO (forget that his product was a scam, you can't win them all).
If we try to sell clients on this "inbound marketing" thing, what happens when they Google the phrase? They discover Hubspot which promises marketing software, website redesign kits and more to generate leads.
Wait, wasn't that what I was going to do for them? Oh well, I can become a "Certified HubSpot Parner" and then they won't get confused!
Hmmph.
It's very difficult for me to get behind something that clearly benefits a very large company that competes with many independent SEOs and small SEO agencies.
I know you love SEO Rand. It's clear that you do. You've done more for this industry the past decade than anyone else. You give the best keynotes, host the best conferences, and provide killer content to your audience. But I still think of you as an SEO...and probably always will.
And even you seem to be struggling with pushing the "inbound" term.
Hubspot is clearly carving out a segment called "Inbound Marketing" and good for them. I just don't think the entire SEO industry needs to go along with them.
~Scott
references:
1. inboundmarketing.com/brian
2. https://www.amazon.com/Inbound-Marketing-Found-Google-Social/dp/0470499311
3. Google SERP for "inbound marketing" (unpersonalized search, no location set)
Very good point. Calling yourself an inbound marketer is essentially handing over the expertise in your stated field to HubSpot and their over-priced software. (Strictly speaking for myself on the price front)
Call me naive, but if more people used Inbound as a generic, descriptive term for a range of marketing services that they offer and create great content and websites around it and then SEO those sites for that term, wouldn't that then decrease and minimse the market saturation of hubspot?
If it suits as a description of what some of us do, then why not embrace it and make it a more broadly used term. Isn't that what we do, optimise sites and content for given keywords to improve search rankings? So why can't we do the same with Inbound Marketing?
Excellent article and excellent discussion.
Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder of HubSpot and the "Dharmesh" referred to in the article.
Rather than replying to individual comments, I'm going to try and jump in with some broader points.
1. The term SEO is useful, descriptive and accurate. I think Rand's point here (and I agree with it) is that we should not dilute its meaning by overloading it. SEO has evolved -- and the practice of SEO definitely includes more activities now than it once did.
SEO -- the term and the industry is continuing to grow. Long live SEO!
2. The fact that HubSpot coined the term should not matter. It's either useful or it's not -- it should stand on its own merit. Being against the term because a specific individual/company came up wiith it amounts to a form of an ad hominem argument. [Note: This would be different if the term was trademarked or being otherwise "protected" from use. Such is not the case. All are free to use it].
3. The fact that HubSpot happens to rank well for the term shouldn't dissuade people. This article already ranks well for the term "inbound marketing". And, since when did SEOs start backing off from using a term just because some other organization (temporarily) happened to be ranking well for it? I fully expect SEOmoz to kick our butt long-term in the rankings. :)
4. Lets remember that we're having this discussion on the SEOmoz blog -- which, unsurprisingly has a lot of passion for the term SEO. And, I'll reiterate that neither Rand nor I are looking to *replace* the term SEO. Having said that, lets remember that the community here is not a representative sample of the world at large -- you folks are much more knowledgeable than the average person.
5. When we were originally pondering this concept, we considered just using online marketing or internet marketing. The reason we didn't go that path was that the terms were too broad and vague and didn't capture the essence of what we were looking to describe. In hindsight, organic marketing (or something else) may have been arguably better. But, I still think there was (and is) a need for something more specific than just internet marketing or online marketing.
6. For what it's worth, we've been using the term with mainstream audiences for many years now. It has resonated with normal people. They may not know exactly what it means from reading it, but it's relatively easy to explain and it seems to "stick".
Overall, it seems that we're in general agreement about the underlying concept of inbound marketing. If the label is useful to you, and you see fit to use it, great! If not, that's totally OK (of course). Please keep doing awesome work -- whatever you call it.
Cheers.
"SEO has evolved"
I agree :-)
Personally I like "Evolving SEO".
You are too biased Dan :D
Personally I am one of those who consider that Inbound Marketing is the correct definition of that web marketing discipline, which uses Seo, Content Marketing, Social Media, CRO and Web Analytic harmonically and in complemented way with the objective to obtain the maximum number of leads from organic sources.
That means that Inbound Marketing is not a substitution of Seo (or of any other discipline), but a bigger and more complex strategy, which uses Seo too.
It is a "connecting" marketing strategy, that enriches and boosts the effects of Seo, Social Media and Content Marketing, not denying them.
It is pure Permission Marketing + Engagement Marketing.
Seo can be practiced as an independent discipline still, and it will still offer great results to whom will do it seriously. But if integrated into an inbound marketing strategy it can offer even bigger results, because enriched by all the other disciplines and not "commanding" them.
Let me give you an example. SEO now thinks to Social Media essentially in terms of ranking factor, not taking really into account what is the real purpose of Social Media itself: creating a community of branding ambassadors. Viceversa Social Media doesn't care of SEO, when the SEO practice could make its activity even more effective. Inbound Marketing, instead, is that discipline which integrates SEO and Social Media incepting into them the characteristics of the other, while - at the same time - maintaining their own main nature.
So, SEOs practitioner should not be scared by Inbound, but look at it as maybe the best way to increase the effects of their actions. And they should not fear Inbound Marketing as other competitive online marketing discipline, but the discipline which can make SEO even more accepted and used.
Said that, few other things:
Thanks, great post! I already used the term Inception Marketing with a new client of mine, explained to him we're going to LeoDiCap the brains of their users, he loved it!
First time I've heard the term "inbound marketing" was reading @GFiorelli1 (or hearing you, I dont remember), and I think that term is more complex and complete than "just" SEO... and I think is better to name what we do.
Whatever happened to "online marketing"?
Online marketing = SEM/PPC+ SEO+ DISPLAY+ SOCIAL+ EMAIL (maybe). Very simple.
"Inbound" feels like a grab for non-online things (catalog/mailing?).
What I'm not clear on is two things:
1.) What is *not* included in "Inbound"?
2.) What *is* included in "Outbound"?
Online marketing seems a lot clearer to me.
The term "Inbound Marketing" feels like the terms "Demand Generation", "Earned Media", etc - terms that are somewhat full of themselves, and are thrown about in an attempt to sound more strategic and CMO-like and less tactical, but really aren't saying much.
According to me SEO is a big deal, SEO is changing day by day, so we can not stay at only one concept. ;-)
Hey Rand,
thank you for reaching out and acknowledging my contribution to this debate. What I tried to say in my post is that optimization is bigger than just marketing which traditionally is sales oriented. Inbound marketing is a great evolution of marketing itself. On the other hand it's not the perfect name for all the other disciplines mentioned above in the post. Why?
Nobody knows what inbound means unless they read the definition. Everybody just recognizes marketing aka same old same old. So this term is not working by itself. You need to educate people and they still will assume that it's sales oriented. In contrast optimization can be improvement beyond just sales.
Also there is already a term that encompasses all of these disciplines. It's findability as propagated by Peter Morville for at least 10 years and Aarron Walters for at least 5. Just check out the findability flower:
https://seo2.0.onreact.com/findability-new-and-better-seo-experts-disagree-12-findability-resources
Findability is a real self explanatory word, not an acronym an is not just about sales likes marketing. Findability can refer to SEO or finding what you want on search engines, CRO or finding what you want on websites, social media or finding what you want there and so on. For a while the term findability almost went mainstream. With an industry leading site like SEOmoz spreading it it would go mainstream for sure IMHO.
The concept of inbound marketing is great but it is limited compared to optimization and findability. For example Morville explains how you can build in findability into airports. That's not inbound marketing at all.
I'm surprised that no one has really discussed the fact that "inbound marketing" was coined by HubSpot originally. I'm not comfortable using another company's coined phrase to describe what I do.
I've been using the phrase "digital marketing" and then breaking it down - SEO, PPC, content, etc - from there.
Inbound Marketing is deffiantly a hot term at the moment in a lot of circles I mix in. I mean in the end of the day we are all working in "Online Marketing" if I meet some one who has totally no connection with SEO, I tell them I work in Online Marketing, I think it is a term the masses get.
But that been said over the last 2 years, two people I have worked with have moved on from SEO with the fear that it may not be around for ever, but to be honest I have been working in SEO for 7 years and I have never seen it this busy, the thing is most of the general public now gets SEO it may take them a few years to truely get Inbound Marketing.
Kind Regards,
James Norquay
And what do we pick when we get tired of "Inbound" ? Maybe we should have a few extra labels in reserve.
One note specific to "earned media" - in the PR world "earned media" is used to define media coverage from outside sources (whether it occured naturally or was the result of media relations efforts). "Earned media" is differentiated from "owned media" which is content that you've created yourself (for content marketing purposes or otherwise).
Loved the AJ Kohn reply of calling it either SEO or internet marketing in general!
I think that this comes down to more of an issue of people choose to label themselves. From the very beginning I resisted the urge to jump on the band wagon and go from Internet Marketer to "SEO" when the first search engines started appearing. It made no sense to me that anyone would want to pigeonhole themselves in to just one small method of marketing a website.
Over the year we've seen people try to rename or redefine what they did, SEO, SMO, CRO, etc etc etc. All the while never really understanding that what they were doing was limiting themselves by using such narrow labels.
Now we see SEOs trying to break out of their chosen internal prisons becuase of what they did to themselves. Rather than try to 'clean up' the mess that they have made of the name SEO, they are choosing to try to rename it. Surprise, the name has been here all along, it's called internet marketing. And we've been here all along doing all the other jobs that SEOs either couldn't or wouldn't do.
So instead of trying to co-opt a term that has been used by telemarketers for more than a decade, why not come back to our real roots and join us old timers where you belong?
What about "Integrated Digital Marketing"? IDM.
I find myself agreeing with the sentiment in wanting to find something that escapes the negativity around the SEO acronym and that better encompasses the specialism's intricacies, but ultimately, as with many others, I find Inbound Marketing to be much too broad.
PPC is inbound marketing. So is email. So is social. So is affiliate... yada yada yada.
To say that PPC or any other marketing tactic based on paid exposition (display advertisement, for instance) is Inbound means to not have really clear the concept of Inbound Marketing, which is funded over the concept of permission marketing and not interruption marketing (as ads clearly are).
And that's exactly the problem.
Semantically, the word 'inbound' conjures up a wide range of marketing activities in all but those most familiar with its concepts (who are, not incidentally, the same people defining it).
It suffers from the exact opposite of the SEO descriptor: it's too broad.
This is the point of the conversation I feel most strongly about. So I'll jump in here.
The only thing stopping us using inclusive terms like inbound (hoover anyone?), or internet, or my preferred term 'digital marketing' is that it includes paid.
And from my clear and obvious 'balanced' point of view, interruption is an emotive term, not appropriate - it is a preference (prejudice?) and as such the separation is a needless one to the client.
To anyone who only offers hammers, it all looks like a nail. Anyone who has been hammered by an SEO remembers and tells all their friends.
Hence the reputation problem - architects of our own downfall.
And so anyone who 'always' advises customers to choose one channel in preference to the other should be shot. Both are equally valid, and arguably, paid always comes first.
:-)
Seriously, why pay people to SEO on terms that 'might' work. Why not prove it with paid research (quickly) and then focus on terms that we know are going to deliver leads.
Ok, if consultants ask all the pertinent questions first, then we don't need to shoot them. Good advice is about keeping everything in context.
By the way, so we should all be able to live together under a single umbrella.
I like Online Presence Development and/or Managment if it's an ongoing service.
SEO is too eggs-in-one-basket.
I'm actually a fan of Online Presence Development. Takes in to account the many different inputs and disciplines within the overall efforts. Given that...
What about Presence Optimization?...not that this was supposed to be a brainstorming session or anything lol
Inbound marketing isn't the best term to describe what we do as SEOs. It's basically just another name for content marketing, which is just a piece of the SEOs toolbox. Many of the tactics that SEOs use could also conceivably fall under the category of outbound marketing, such as press releases, blogger outreach, etc.
I prefer the term "organic marketing". It's a simple term that describes exactly what it's about-- marketing through organic traffic channels, whether that's search, social, what have you.
If you want to get even more exact with taxonomy, I suggest the following:
I think that about covers it.
In fact it is not meant to be just another definition of SEO. And I agree with you that maybe Organic Marketing is the best fitting in definition... if Organic was not so relied to food for those ones outside of the Marketing circles.
And you saying that Content Marketing is just a piece of the SEO toolbox... I think that all the Content Marketers will start chasing you because of that phrase :D. In fact, Content Marketing can be done without having a clue of SEO: we can find lot of a great successful sites standing out and having a really poor SEO.
Good point about the organic food. Not sure what a better word would be. Natural marketing? Free marketing?
Not sure I agree with you about content marketing... how can you do content marketing without SEO? Or social media? Unless they are using offline channels to promote their content, they are going to have to use some form of organic or paid traffic generation method to find readers for their content.
You can do it with Social Media... you can do it with world of mouth, literally (I've seen many blog or vlogs - i.e.: moms ones or vlog about make-up) becoming huge success starting from a very small base of fans, who started to spread their existence and so increasing exponentially the user base of those sites.
I agree - except that many people do analytics without caring much about SEO. Especially those relying much on social analytics sych as bit.ly, topsy, followerwonk etc etc.
One problem I see as an online and offline marketer is that Inbound Marketing to many immediately conjures up visions of Inbound Marketing campaigns to Inbound Sales teams (in house or call center). While digital marketing campaigns certainly drive to these response centers, I still associate the term with offline marketing while SEO clearly relates to the Net. Is it cumbersome to rebrand a term that already carries considerable weight in the marketing space?
Great to see my pal AJ mentioned in your post Rand - and to a fantastic hire for the now defunct petstore.com!
Let's just call it "Marketing" and let the offline marketers re-name what they do...
Just offered the suggestion around the office here with the affiliate, web dev, PPC and CRM teams and the general feeling is that 'Inbound Marketing' isn't a clear definition. To those in the know it encompasses everything we want it to, social, content, link-building, et al., but to those who don't understand the term it also sounds like it includes PPC, or Email. I think deciding as an industry what you want to be called can be a tricky business.
I guess it's similar to keyword research for clients, they often tell you what they want to rank for and what their customers search for, but when you look into it you find that's just what they call themselves, not the understanding of the general public. Could be a good idea to explain to people/clients the full-extent of what we do and then let them abbreviate. (Obviously we expalin our work, but not sure if they listen!)
@gfiorelli1 - I do link the sound of 'Inception Marketing' though.
Interesting. People on my office generally love the notion of inbound marketing and earning our way in, instead of buying our way in.
I actually think our employees are a bit prouder of their work when casting it in this light.
That was my point, SEOs like the sound of Inbound Marketing, because we feel it covers everything we do. We are assuming that the general public understand 'inbound' to mean 'natural' or 'organic'. Outside the industry 'Inbound' could mean paid search, affiliates and email - marketing techniques to drive traffic to a website.
Love the examples with the job interview. To many outsiders, SEO is some shady manipulative stuff.
Now, inbound doesn't carry this negative connotation. At least not yet. We always focus on what inbound is - SEO, Social, Content, Outreach, CRO, and Analytics. But to keep the word clean and non-shady, we also need to be clear about what it is not.
And in this regard I particularly think about black hat and even grey hat SEO. If we embrace such practices, the term of inbound marketing will be just as tarnished as SEO 1-2 years from now.
So I think its critical to underline that inbound marketing is the use of legitimate practice of SEO, Social, Content, Outreach, CRO, and Analytic,
Hi Rand!! I still feel that Internet Marketing as a term comprises all the aspects of SEO, Social Media, Bla Bla.. When we say Inbound, it sounds more like people finding us by looking for the services and products we are offering. Social Meida in this case becomes more like an Outbound Marketing where people are throwing themselves towards an audience. PS: A transcription of video would really help as the sound doesn't work on my office system :)
Since I am actively involved in "SEO", PPC, CRO, Web Analytics in general, UX, lead generation, content strategy, etc, I tend not to use the term SEO, if possible. As an in-house marketer at a software enterprise, I find that the majority of upper management marketers do not really understand what "we" mean by "SEO" today anyway. Similarly, aside from terms like the too-genernal "internet/digital/inbound marketer" most of the titles in this business will be misunderstood anyway.
I prefer to describe what I do as "Web Performance Optimization", supported by saying: "I essentially do 2 things; I drive quality traffic to websites, then I make sure that the traffic is likely to reach our business goals."
If they are knowledgeable enough to ask; "What specifically do you do?", I'll reply with the short list above.
Are you a 'scientist' or a microbiologist?
Is SEO a methodology or a discipline?
How many SEOs - people on here who describe themselves as such - are experts in keyword research, terrific at article copywriting, experienced in multivariate testing, and can plan and budget an integrated cross-platform 6 month strategy for a new business launch? Not many.
Like many of us I do all sorts of overlapping disciplines - Strategy / Audits / SEO / CRO / PPC / Analytics / etc et, and today had to choose either 2 or 4 descriptions to appear on our regional (Manchester Digital) trade roster.
I toyed with 'INBOUND MARKETING' for 5 minutes, but have the same reservations everyone else has mentioned.
For advertising I can't do without 'SEO' - it's a term people understand and search for, from agencies to in-house terms to business owners. At worst it starts the conversation.
I tend to use 'PPC' separately (but often end up saying 'ADWORDS' - again it depends on audience)
My business cards say 'DIGITAL MARKETING' - it's fairly broad, doesn't seem to be loaded with any negative connotations, and sounds like a higher daily rate. That's my vote.
SEO has a definition, one that everyone understands. Trying to come up with a new "name" is simply marketing in itself. So in terms of "marketing" the term SEO, it's about being crafty. Inbound marketing is just one example. The meaning needs to stay the same though, because when you're "marketing" inbound marketing to a small business owner, they may have no idea what you're selling. They know what SEO is. Maybe the perception is only skewed in the techically savvy industry?
Don - shoot. Was really hoping that the one thing I made totally, 100% clear in the post is that no one is trying to re-brand or rename SEO. SEO is great as it is. It means what is says - search engine optimization. It's focused on search engines, though, and that means that outside our insular world, it will never also mean "social media," "content marketing," "PR," "outreach," "analytics," "CRO," etc.
Knowing what SEO is is precisely the problem. We're trying to define something that doesn't today fit under that umbrella, not rebrand it.
Wish I knew how I could make my writing clearer - my whole goal with this blog post was to avoid the content of your comment (not that it's your fault - it's mine), just wondering how I should write better in the future.
No rand it’s not your fault SEO is still changing it shape and every day or a month another ingredient is added in SEO. So it’s difficult to capture a sea into a bowl. SEO is an open equation…..
Hey Rand:
Quick suggestion that might have made it more clear for most folks, including me even though I fully understand what you are trying to get at, is graphics.
Create 2 sets of graphics: All marketing channels and Inbound only channels.
Further you could expound on what you mean by "inbound" marketing by listing all of those sources: CRO, Social Media, Content, etc. and listing "other" channels like SEM, and other paid mediums that you don't want to include.
I think that would allow us to wrap our heads around it visually.
Chris
There's a few charts on this post from HubSpot that should do the trick :-)
-Dan
From reading many posts here and on many blogs/forums I feel like "social media," "content marketing," "PR," "outreach," "analytics," "CRO," are all a part of SEO, and although they are not part of it in a literal definition, all these fun tasks "social media," "content marketing," "PR," "outreach," "analytics," "CRO" will help benefit a sites ranking on search engines if done properly, the practice of getting a site good search engine results is under the SEO umberella, right?
In other words..
SEO - Search engine optimization - The goal and the main objective of SEO is to rank on search engines. Here are some of the steps I use to do just that "social media," "content marketing," "PR," "outreach," "analytics," "CRO," "link building" etc.. In fact I find majority of these topics/fun tasks inside of Search Engine Optimization forums.
BTW. I bet a bunch of people on this thread just bought some new domains :p lol
Such a notion that SEO is about getting "ranked" on search engines is probably the reason why Randy wrote this post in the first place. We need to perform SEO in the minds of users first, not the search engines. I know that sounds a bit ironic, but that's precisely what SEO is about. Or, perhaps that is why some people feel SEO is spammy, since they don't know how to interpret the meaning of "true" ranking on SERPs.
Rand,
it's a gutsy call on your part, but I think many in the SEO industry are looking at the issue from inside the bottle. IE IE If we want better SEO we need to create more content and be more social, so lets do that, let's bring that under our wing.
The problem is, from an outsider's perspective I wouldn't give writing and social media tasks to the SEO dept.
I'd give them to writers and the most garroulous socializers I could find. The skill sets and personality types are polar opposites to most SEO's (yourself excluded of course).
Rightly or wrongly SEO has positioned itself as a highly technical pursuit, while writing and socialising on the other hand are more creative left brain activities.
You simply can't put the two personality types together, they'll kill each other before the week is out. (That's a joke.)
I thonk this debate has quite a ways to go.
Be careful what you wish for. Change the definition and you'll find your turf targeted by PR agencies and social media specialist agencies.
Personally I think that asking an individual to be an expert in all the areas you list is too much. Modern online marketing, which is what we're really describing, needs specialists in lots of areas, including SEO, content, analytics, online PR, etc...
Also, I generally tend to think that truly great online marketing needs to take account of paid and owned/earned channels, and integrate them all. And it should also take account of how on & offline can & do work together. By trying to create/take ownership of these newish terms, I'd argue you could be in danger of walling yourself into a silo.
I would disagree with this based primarily on the fact that things like Social are separate but not distinct. They fall outside of SEO in some cases and within for certain others. Just saying SEO doesn't necessarily, or should it, include all of the other elements that work alongside and in compliment.
The point is not what SEO people call social media, but what other people/outsiders call social media.
Go to any communication department doing social media and ask if they do SEO. Most of them will say no. Because they don't think about SEO. That they might actually do some SEO without knowing it is not the point.
You can never convince such communication people they do SEO. But you might want to convince them that they - and you - do inbound marketing.
I'm not only talking about Social though. That was just an example.
THere are elements of each of the disciplines Rand outlines that have previously fallen under, at least casually so, the umbrella of Inbound Marketing.
And largely I see your point - but in my experience there is increasing awareness around the optimization of content for search within communications departments so on that point I disagree.
Well on the flipside, inbound marketing doesn't necessarily connote SEO unless you're already involved in search since it applies to so many other tactics. And you may find some search-heavy inbound marketers, some social-heavy inbound marketers, some heavy on content publishing or UGC...
We might end up with more fragmented terms like 'Inbound SEO,' 'Inbound Social Media,' and so on. That would at least help differentiate SEO from the negative brand association with things like link spammers (outbound tactic‽)
I would argue that the definition of SEO might not be something that everyone understands/defines in the same way. If you're thinking about this community then I think you're right in thinking that SEO has a pretty universal meaning. But, if you're talking to people outside the SEO community then you're going to get some pretty broad definitions that will often include reference to paid search. I personally like the term inbound marketing for SEO and related work, but it really comes down to who you're talking to and what you're trying to convey.
SEO is too narrow. Internet marketing is too broad. Inbound marketing seems just right to me.
As an in-house Inbound Marketer, my colleagues have pointed out that I do more than just SEO. Some even say this is a bad thing and that I overstep my bounds. This is where SEO becomes to confining. We all know that content, social, and conversion are all critical factors and need to be addressed, but calling it just SEO creates artificial barriers.
Callling it Internet marketing makes people think it is like pay-per-click, or a type of direct marketing. In this sense, it becomes too broad.
If modern SEO is being driven by a handful of tactics (e.g., social, PR, content, analytics and conversion), it just seems logical that we would settle upon a new label. Personally, I like the idea of sticking to Inbound marketing until it actually is understood to represent all the tactics we employ each day.
At Click2Rank we just did a complete makeover of our site. Entire new design, and all new content. When it came to the services and the umbrella focus for the entire site, I went with my intuition. SEO Consulting services. Inbound marketing may feel like a better more cutting edge catch-all, however I work and live in the world of serving corporate clients. Corporate clients have always been, and will always be several years behind any "trend" - both because that's the speed at which corporate adapts, and just as often it's because they adapt slowly partly to prevent falling into the red herring trend hunt.
SEO, regardless of all the internally applied stigma (read that - stigma that we put on it ourselves, in various ways), and all the "SEO is evil" (from within and outside the industry), is, as Danny so eloquently put it, now has 15 years of foundational strength. And any corporate executive tasked with online revenue responsibilities will most definitely look to SEO many more times, and with much more clarity of value, than inbound marketing or any other buzz words thrown about.
Changing the title by which we refer to our services will not do anything to change perception of those outside of the SEO/internet marketing profession.
The perception problem we face is based on the shady tactics of spammers, who call themselves SEO's. If everyone starts calling themselves "Inbound Marketers", or whatever, those same shady people with their same shady tactics will adopt the new title as well.
If anything needs to change it's how one gets to be qualified to be called an SEO and more importantly, who bestows the designated title. I mean, doctors get to be called doctors because they have a diploma, issued by an authoritative and respected body that has education and practicum requirements in order to be issued the diploma. Whereas anyone can call themselves an SEO, and really, who can argue? Since there is no standardized way of recognizing what someone does or does not know about the industry.
Total agree on the idea that naming switches/expansions won't help. There will be spammed-up inbound and eventually the people who do headline skimming will equate inbound with spam too, just like they do now with SEO.
Totally disagree with the qualification idea. Mainly because it would be impossible to set a "fair" bar for qualification and the power of the group deciding who's in or out will eventually be abused.
As with university education, if you have the ability to demonstrate the required knowledge for a given area of study, you are awarded with a diploma. There is a set and universally agreed upon requirement that everyone knows about at the start of the process.
I disagree that there would be abuses of power since it would, or rather, should be a standardized set of requirements, universally agreed upon. If you know it, you know it. If you don't, no title for you. Try again later when you know your stuff.
But "knowing your stuff" means different things to different people.
I can, and regularly do, get sites ranked with things some whitehats *insist* do not and will not work. To them, that would not be "SEO". It would turn into a big tactics debate.
I think there would absolutely be abuses of power though - look at Top SEOs as a small example.
I get the college thing... I just look at us more like mechanics than doctors. The guy I go to had a dad that was a mechanic. Never went to school for it - just came up around cars and its what he does every day. He's a pro - no degree required. The proof is in his work and the word of mouth referrals he gets - not in some piece of paper that he could have gotten by being a C student or an A student.
A qualification system just means you can do whatever the bare minimum is set at. It also wouldn't prevent spammers from taking the course, being "accredited" by giving all the whitehat answers, and then spamming away and ruining the name of the accreditation. The whole thing just feels pointless - though I do understand the frustration and where you're coming from.
I feel that SEO is not the correct Acronym for all these services. If anything I would still agree with Internet Marketing or more specifically Organic Marketing but it I’m sure there is something better.
Yes, SEO does encompass all these things; as do many of these things encompass SEO. However, they each are unique in their own way. If we were to try and evolve the acronym SEO into all the separate areas then we might as well include programming too. Because there is a certain level of programming required for proper on-site SEO (that is at least when you actually build a site and don't use various open source framework). I think that example alone clarifies why we simply can't try and evolve the SEO acronym into all these areas and the need for some new term.
I Think they all need to remain separate while having one blanket term that covers them all. I have actually been saying Internet Marketing to people for the last 15 years. I never said SEO that much because when I started doing SEO the term wasn't really being used or was just emerging. But mainly I only use the term when I am speaking with Tech people. To this day my relatives ask me what SEO is. I have told them for 15 years and they still don't know what it is. So why make it even more confusing and include 10 more skills sets.
Each skill set is unique in itself. There are masters at Social Marketing that no very little SEO. There are masters at Analytics that don't know SEO, Social or the others, etc. I agree, it is good to know and understand all of these and use them all to the best of your ability, but they aren't all SEO.
Here would be one way to look at it. You have the subject Mathematics and there are many forms of Mathematics. You have Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, Geometry, Etc... They are all mathematics and they do have some common grounds and interest in one another, however they are not the same. So Organic Marketing or whatever the new term becomes would encompass SEO, Social, Analytics, Etc...
I would say Organic Marketing makes the most sense and is the easiest to understand. Even prior to reading this article and reading that it was a term open for suggestion, that term came to mind. The Earned Marketing and Inbound Marketing are going to open up the same confusion to the laymen. We need something that everyone can understand. The only reason those other two terms are being searched more is because more influential people have been been pushing them for a while now.
The problem with Internet marketing is that both words are just too general and broad. I think a good term for all these specialized services in one would be a term that everyone can understand and at least get a general understanding of what it is you do just from hearing it.
I think some good words to consider for this would be looking at the highest level of what is being done and try to combine that into one term. Terms that come to mind are: Exposure, Framework, Website, Infrastructure, Foundation, Marketing, Natural, Organic, Systems, Operations, Free, Listings, and many more. Because much like a developing a new website, you must first develop or choose good framework. Well in that development while it is being developed you have to consider the SEO implications of what you are doing. If you don’t build in SEO Framework, it could have some very serious consequences down the road. Though it may sound obvious or maybe too vague I would suggest using “Website” in there some way. After all, every one of these services is being performed on a website or for a website. So why isn’t website in there?
So with that being said, how about a name like Website Framework Exposure (WFE) or Website Foundation Marketing (WFM) or Website Marketing Operations (WMO) or Natural Website Marketing (NWM)… I’m not sure if any of these are the right answer, but I think we still need to keep looking. I think these do begin to explain things better but still need refinement. If we put our thinking caps together, I’m sure we could hit a homerun.
Or maybe even Website Visibility (WV), Website Visibility Services (WVS), or Website Exposure Services (WES). Again, I think we can come up with something that is more self-explanatory.
This may sound a bit cheesy, but what about Search Experience Optimization?
It's still SEO, but with a extra twist to it. After all, SEO is not about "optimizing the search engines", it has never been about that and it will never be. Search Engine Optimization will always sound manipulative.
It's really about "optimizing for the experience that users perceive when searching for content". It's about trying to deliver the best possible content in the best possible way.
The "experience" covers
I'm looking forward to anyone's thoughts on this...
LOL... my thought? That maybe you should go to my site (iloveseo.net) and read its tagline :D.
What you say remind a conversation I had with Bill Slawski almost one year ago about "the definition of SEO"
I'm sorry, I didn't knew. Great minds... ;-)
Offcourse, Search Experience Optimization doesn't cover the whole "inbound marketing" package, but I see it as a good replacement for "Search Engine Optimization".
Engine: indicates it's about the search engines.Experience: indicates it's about the people.
Personally, I believe in people, not in algorithms.
tc;dr; (too cheesy, didnt read)
I don't think "too broad" is a good enough reason to not use internet marketing.
When your definition of inbound marketing includes: SEO, PPC, Social, Outreach, and whatever else. Those "sub-categories" call for a broad all encompassing definition. And we already have that: "internet marketing".
That's what we do.
Even though it may sound mad 90's.
This is a very profound discussion on a timely subject. I was thinking of doing some analysis of the SEOMoz blog titles in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to chart the inexorable shift in the industry. My guess that the early posts would focus on the mechanics of SEO, the later ones take a more holistic view to the task of getting clients more business / interest / leads - after all, that's the real job, right?
SEO is an activity that has changed in it's nature from a technical task to a very different occupation now.
A (good) SEO now is not solely concerned with "nuts and bolts" SEO - tags, links that sort of thing. They need to understand social networks, social influence, have a handle of conversion and usability and be creative. To me that suggests that a good SEO is no longer an SEO - they are something else.
There are some very interesting developments coming down the track - the continued rise of social networks, closer integration with mass media streams and platforms especially TV and mobile. As this process evolves, the browser experience we are familiar with today will recede. The Google home page will not be the start of a person's digital journey. When this happens, SEO will be a tiny part of the job of helping clients get more of what they need, perhaps to the point that calling yourself an SEO will no longer be useful or recognised as valuable.
We have been struggling with how to simplify this issue and communicate it to our potential and current clients. Here is a sentence we have been using for a couple of year now:
We understand the relationship between website development, blogging strategy, SEO strategy, social media strategy and the implementation of all of these into one cohesive, maximized web brand imprint.
While we don't talk about convertion here and that is an issue, we have tried to make it understandable as an integrated approach.
I think the distinction between push and pull marketing online is starting to blur too, which makes the terms "organic" and "inbound" have some built-in obsolescence. Years ago I used to think the biggest difference between SEO/SEM and other types of marketing is that with SEO/SEM you are ONLY showing users ad advertisement that they specifically asked to see. If I go to Google and type "Bicycle helmets" and I see some PPC ads and some organic results, they should all be about bicycle helmets and I shouldn't be upset as a consumer that I am being "marketed to". Rather, I should be happy that there is a medium on which I can find solutions customized to my needs so easily.
This is unlike other mediums, like TV, radio or print, in which the best possible targeting still only gets down to things like demographics. IF you buy Mother Earth New THEN you "may" be interested in this advertisement selling chicken coops for $3,000. The thing is, I didn't ask to see an ad about chicken coops, nor do I think anyone in their right mind would pay that much for one. I may see a TV ad when watching Big Bang Theory trying to sell me some shampoo, but I didn't "ask" to see that ad. I merely - and begrudgingly - accept the fact that I have to "pay to watch" in this way. There are similar PUSH advertising methods online, like video ads and banners - but in time I think these things are going to move more and more toward the retargeting model because PUSH advertising like that isn't as effective in that you are paying for views that aren't the least bit interested - they didn't "ask" to see the ad.
I mentioned that push and pull are being blended. Retargeting, especially search retargeting is a prime example of this. I did "ask" to see that ad about hand-cranked meat grinders, but I asked to see it yesterday on a search engine, not today on an SEO blog as I go over content with a client. Other types of advanced targeting, such as the ad options offered on Facebook, also push the boundaries where the clear distinction between push and pull marketing has been for many years. Is leveraging a social media network to push your content out to their friends and family members any more "organic" than showing someone who searches for "SEO software" an SEOMoz ad a day later? And are they not both generating "inbound" traffic to your site?
I don't know what the answer is, but I know I'm not sold on "indbound" just yet. Unlike Netmeg though, I'm open to the idea of putting Chilean Sea Bass, Inbound Marketer, Patagonian Toothfish or Keyword Farmer next to my name if it turns out that's what my potential customers are searching for.
* Real Name: Wait-N-See Bass
The word 'inbound marketer' is not marketable. As it doesn't not clearly define what you are selling. It is like a mechanic who promise to cook your dinner, drop your kids to school, clean your house, water the plants in addition to fixing your car. When you go out and market your self like this, you loose businee opportunities. Businesses don't want generalist. They want specialist. There are Lawyers who take only divorce cases, they are doctors who deal with only children and yes there are some SEOs out there who deal only with a particular niche.
Everywhere i go and look, i see clients looking for specialist. The first question that they ask is "do you have experience in my industry? If not then how you will build links, how you will connect with my target audience". These are some very valid questions. A SEO who has been serving a particular niche say 'chiropractors' for 2 or 3 years will produce faster and more effective results than a SEO who is just starting out in this field as the latter will spend first few months in doing the research, understanding the business and the market. But even after all this it is very hard for him to beat the SEO who knowns ins and out of the industry and earning rankings in the industry for years.
I think lot of SEOs are spreading themeselves too thin these days in the name of inbound marketing and this should be stopped. Trying to be an expert in anything which effects SEO will not take us anywhere. The Jack of all trades is better suited for managerial positions as you can't manage if you don't understand the role of your individual team members. For majority of hands on SEOs, it is wise to become a specialist.
What you are saying is totally correct, but I think it is not a contraddiction to talk about Inbound Marketing and SEO (or Social Media) at the same time.
Personally I consider Inbound Marketing more a wider strategy than SEO. More over, Inbound Marketing, IMO, use SEO as an essential tactic in order to fulfill its strategy.
That means that, yes, Inbound Marketing is more a managerial discipline and the inbound marketer should be more a strategist than something else. As you can see nothing different from what are you saying.
Probably, if we look at the real world, it is true that one-man-band cannot handle alone all the complexities an Inbound Marketing strategy involves. So it is true what you say, that it would be better for him to specialize in what he already offers: an SEOs doing SEO (or even more: specializing into one aspect of SEO), Social Media Specialist doing social media campaigns and Content Marketing Specialists creating targeted amazing content... and that is totally perfect and normal.
What is important, though, is that is the philosophy behind the Inbound Marketing definition that SEOs, Social Media and Content Marketing Specialist would need to "absorb" and have always in mind. I mean, an SEO should have to know that everything is going to do is going to have a wider effect if he cooperate with the other figures which may fall under an Inbound Marketing Strategy.
The inbound marketer, somehow, is that figure that may help connecting and making work together in syncronicity all these figures, with the ability and the purpose to complement them for the common benefit.
Inbound marketing may include SEO but it should not be the same vice versa. I refuse to include CRO, Social Media Marketing, Reputation Management, PR etc into SEO with full force. Here is why:
I am a SEO provider not the business partner of my client. Consequently i have a little to no control on his products' pricing, options, features, branding, merchandising, market value and after sales services. When i promise to provide holistic solutions in the name of inbound marketing, i am taking almost full responsibility of my client's sales ability and that too for a monthly retainer and not as a partner in profit. Not only i am loosing money but i am also misleading my client by making him believe that inbound marketing is a sort of remote control strategy which can work in a vaccum.
When you optimise a business with little to no control on product pricing, features, merchandising, branding etc you are working in a vacumm. The inbound marketing we read about everywhere these days is really meant for business owners and not for third party service providers. Being a business owner myself, i know that you can't really optimise my business unless i let you control my pricing, merchandising and branding. The sad thing is that so many people are learning inbound marketing for all the wrong reasons. You can't sell a product which has no market or market value no matter how many A/B tests you do. Similalry you can't sell a product more than its market. As a marketer we should all know about the scope of our services. The field of SEO has scope, what it can or can't do. But inbound marketing has no scope as it does not clearly defines which marketing channels to leverage, up to which extent, for how long and the sort of results a business can expect. You are literally promising the moon to your client if you sell inbound marketing as a strategy to him.
But what you are saying can't be offered by third party businesses is exactly what holistic marketing companies do. We provide our clients with all of that, we do their branding, web design, advertising, SEO, social... and even work with them on pricing. For those of us working on bigger picture strategy with clients, SEO is too specific a term and concept and dosen't cover all the earned marketing that we do. A term like Inbound Marketing allows us to explain and expand on what we do and how we put an overall strategy in place to improve SEO, develop social media connections, create great content and more. It isn't instead of SEO but as an umbrella that a related group of actions can fit under.
And then to say that business should only look at using seperate specialists can be really detrimental to some smaller and mid sized businesses - different people working on different actions with little cross communication and a common goal and strategy can result in a bits and pieces approach to marketing which isn't going to work well.
I really agree with gfiorelli1, Inbound is about a broader approach which includes SEO but is also made up of a range of different yet connected strategies to earn a place in the market.
I have to disagree about people looking for specialties when it comes to web marketing/inbound marketing/whatever you want to call it. Every time I've worked on a website -- whether inhouse or freelance -- I was expected to do EVERYTHING or at least hack through it. Example from RL: I can use Photoshop, but you don't want me as your graphic artist. Or I can probably do little hacks to your .NET code, but I'll probably break your site.
While I think people's understanding of jobs and why specialities are helpful is expanding, it's not there for general public for our jobs. We don't have a TV show like a Grey's Anatomy that's about speciality surgeons and people understand a surgeon is not the same as your doctor and a neurosurgeon is not the same as a cardiologist. Perhaps what I'm really saying is that we need a TV show about inbound marketers.
I have to agree with SEOTakeaways. As an in-house, I would rather hire somebody who is an SEO Specialist, Social Media Specialist or SEM Specialist than someone who claimed to be an Inbound Marketer. The term just sounds like you're trying to compensate for lack of any targeted skill. It sounds like a generalist term that people who aren't very savvy in one particular area would use.
I would expect the Inbound Marketer to preach a lot and not know how to implement.
Obviously from reading SEOmoz I know this is not necessarily the case, but I tend to pull out my BS-meter pretty quickly when people throw titles like that around.
Rand -- well said and as you know agreed.
Nice presentation at Hackers and Founders btw!
Matt
Rand,
Again great stuff and i must say the video is awesome.
I think a term for covering every service that is necessary for inbound traffic is great. SEO is used in both positive and negative ways and as you already described in your text some people are sick of SEO companies contacting them. So for exactly that reason I can completely understand what you are saying about using another term for the total flow.
The small problem I have with "Inbound Marketing" is that is again contains the word Marketing. When I use Internet Marketing or Social Media Marketing as services to provide to costumers they always asume you are going to come up with a report that includes the Piramide of Maslov a SWOT analyses or maybe even a Porter scheme. The other thing, People in the Netherlands think, is that marketing is very expensive and that part makes it very difficult to sell your services.
I personally can give clients many references for website i optimised that started scoring better and better but still that alone is not the right argument to make them forget that word marketing or the affiniation that the have with the word marketing. I think their in lies the problem. People still asociate Marketing (even as part of another term) with the "old" ways.
Still I must agree with you on the principal of coming up with a term that covers it all. Inbound Marketing does sound good. I'm trying to think of another term but that is not real easy.
Cheers:
Jarno
If we base Google Insights for Search, "SEO" is still the growing term, "Online Marketing" is steady, while we can see a decline in usage for terms like Internet Marketing, Web Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization.
Inbound Marketing searches are slowly increasing over the years
I think Inbound Marketing is going to carry the day. Although I totally understand and agree with your point about the expanding duties of an SEO and that it's not meant to be a re-branding of SEO, I feel that it will ineveitably be taken that way by those outside of the field (from inside the field, too, it seems). Great conversation to have, though.
Great post Rand, certainly a lot of information and opinion for positive discussion.
Personally, I see it very clearly:
1) SEO is SEO, it does what it says on the tin. SEO isn't going anywhere, it's a very specialist extremely important practice. For those that purely or almost entirely do SEO for their job/career, it's fits ideally as a title/description.
2) For those who do SEO as a part of their job/career however also do Social, Content Marketing, Blogging, CRO & Analytics, SEO doesn't accurately describe what they do which is your clear message here and reason for considering other descriptive titles I believe. For those that fit into this broader type of role, Inbound Marketer seems to describe it accurately.
So really it seems very simple, is up to each individual (or their employer) to pick one or the other (or another such as 'earned media marketer') to describe what they do. SEO is SEO; Inbound Marketing/Earned Media/Organic Marketing is the broader practice of SEO + those other practices. :-)
Hi Rand,
The only physical entity so to speak that can exist independently is PPC.
Today’s online Eco system demands all the other platforms to support each other. For example, Social Factors play an important role in Organic Searches, the social platforms ideally should be accessible via Organic Searches, and there are cases where ranking for Brand Terms is even more crucial than ranking for Non brand terms.
So to sum it up I believe we need to define and identify a term that gives a more holistic view of what is done, so I would suggest
ONLINE BRAND MONITORING AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT.
The name is not scary, easily understandable and something that will help the brands connect with the digital world. It also covers every platform like search engines, Social Platforms and the website itself.
- Sajeet
I think that already has a well-understood definition - but it doesn't include any of the things you mentioned. Instead, it just refers to tracking mentions of a brand online and engaging to help protect the reputation. It almost never refers to actually driving traffic through inbound/organic/non-paid channels (at least, I've never heard it as such).
Hi Rand,
I guess that’s the notion that we probably need to change. People sometimes (kind of) associate SEO with either spamming or just link building.
When we use such a term we need to tell them that Brand Monitoring will also include monitoring the performance of the website in terms of rankings because eventually the rankings of highly searched terms will also define the BRAND popularity. Also as compared to SEO it kind of is easier to explain.
Also as I stated above, SEO can no longer exist as an independent entity so might as well sell it as a subset of something that a Brand will understand more easily.
- Sajeet
Personally I was looking forward to using OBMARM as an acronym
Inbound Marketing is definately winning race in near future.. Another things that I am foreseeing is that corporate training on Seo & Social Media. Results are being personlised a lot... so Organisations has to incorporate Social Media in Corporate trianing programme to increase brand influence..
Person seating miles away and doing seo for you company will not be as effective as your own empoloyee or part of your own organisation can do for you.
Also I believe Crowdsourcing will replace outsourcing specially in SEO & in Digital marketing..
This post went longer :) anyway I recently had a thought to use "digital strategy consulting" ... how about this term?
I am not crazy about the phrase. We are SEOs and if I ever use a diffrent term it is Traffic Expert or Internet Marketing Expert. If someone equates SEO to spam they are ignorant or had a bad experience with a scam artist.
It's no fun to have people misunderstand what you do and think that when you are some unethical scumbag when you're really just trying to make the world a better place.
Whatever name we give our industry, the important thing is the education that goes with it to help people outside the industry understand our work.
The question of what SEO actually encompasses today has practical ramifications too. I recently looked at joining a business networking group here in the UK. The group allows one representative from each business niche so as to encourage the best networking and exchange of business between its members.
Before attending, I explained that my business was internet marketing/SEO, and listed the various elements that encompassed. Imagine my surprise when I turned up on the day to find I'd been listed as a copywriter!
When I explained that, yes, copywriting was one element of what I did but that it was part of a bigger picture that also involved "traditional" SEO, social media, email marketing etc, and that no one element worked well on its own, I was told I was trying to cover too many business niches and would have to choose!
I think the point I'm making is that WE know what we ought to be doing to provide our clients with the best service, but we still have a long way to go to get the outside world to understand.
I personally like the term Digital Marketing and I don't think it is too broad. As you mentioned, SEO's these days are doing a little bit of everything (I know I am) and the more broad the term, the better.
Lately I think the term has changed to digital marketing manager or consultant or what not, but honestly I'm just going to throw this out there what happens when mobile takes over? I'm just curious how these practices will move over onto a mobile platform and how advertisers and marketers in general will keep the audience flowing because I think at that point a lot of it will be word of mouth, but maybe that's the key build them up so that you can cross promote online, but then what do you do when your income is mainly ad revenue? Mobile leaves a lot of questions I just wish someone in SEO would talk about it a little more even if it's the year of social I think it would be good to look at some mobile things as well and then define the job more because right now there are mobile marketers, but eventually that term will have to be adopted as well into the fold of SEO/Digital Marketing.
I'm late to the conversation, but looks like a good one.
The brand of SEO has the same problem the brand of PR does, Rand. The same problem many professions do. Whatever word or words we use to define ourselves are, by necessity, a shortcut. And the trouble with shortcuts is they never accurately define or describe what we do.
The broader the title, the more individuals it applies to. Good apples, bad apples...self-defined and those defined by others. The behavior of each individual who shares the label affects public perceptions of the label itself, and by extension, everyone who uses the label to describe himself or herself. Fair or not, SEO is judged by the collective behavior of its practitioners, and the negative behaviors are weighted in the perception algorithm.
You should be comforted by the fact PR has this problem, too. After all, if the spin industry can't paint a rosy picture of itself, what hope does SEO have?
My advice: Quit worrying about perceptions of the profession. Let your reputation precede your title. Rebranding an entire industry is an epic task with too many factors outside of your control, even for a well-respected leader in the SEO profession. Earning a reputation for delivering results and valuable insight -- regardless of your label -- is much more within your control.
One of my boss suggest me to trade my love for SEO and for this word wich describe not only my Job or a passion for search engines but simply a religion to "Brand content Manager/expert/professional".
The first time I heart that I was like "man what are you talking about"...But after refexion Brand content professional has one advantage: the word "brand" which here can be use for big or small businesses "selling" the idea that we (SEO expert) are going to help the brand (SMB's or big brand) to improve the visibility of their content (photo, video, text,...) no matter where their targeted customers are!
Hence, regarding the big number of comments above it seems to me that perhaps we need to add something to seo in order to dilute the "bad side or bad perception" of this term...Hence I would suggest to think about "Brand content expert" or "brand content professional".
Hi guys,
personaly I think SEO will stick around for good. Adding another dimension (in this case a name) will just add fuel to the fire of those that mock us in the first place. Internet marketing is getting a much worse rep alltogether, which cannot be surprising due to all the black hat/spammy techniques used by 99% of the people involved.
In my own soroundings, I dont get a sense of any negativity regarding SEO itself. I believe most people just stray away cause they dont know what it is, so ... its something martians and spaceman do.
Will deffinetly keep an eye and ear out for inbound marketing in the future. Hope it flies :)
Sincerely, Buyseech
I think people will look more to be active in social media, seo is too many up date like panda and now penguin, many people get confuse with the new seo and at the same time social media is getting interesting and get social is human basic need :)
As a newcomer to the "SEO" field my perception of this profession is that as the business of SEO evolves it will continue to get better and better. Eventually, public perception will change as more ethical, qualified individuals are required to enter into this field.
What an exciting time this is for anyone like yourself to see this evolution take place. Today's SEO Companies will define the future of this industry.
Great post, I loved the video. I think most of people here in UK are more familiar with the term SEO than with the term Inbound Marketing.
Great post Rand and to be honest this is so bold that you come up with a very controversial topic to talk on...
I am glad that you clear this misunderstanding that SEO is not being Re-branded it is what it is and it is great!... you are doing things with search engine...Great! You are SEO!
But, if your job is way more than just cracking the search engine algorithm and winning the SERP rankings, if you are working around with business branding through social media, if you are creating awareness through content marketing, if you are using Paid channels to bring quick sales then SEO is not the right umbrella to justify your job... and for that I believe ‘Inbound’ is a decent title to it.
I do like "inbound marketing" since it does cover most of the areas SEO does and even more.
However, there's one aspect/concept of inbound marketing that is never mentioned: demand (or lead) generation.
Since I've started actively working on SEO, I've been following a lot of SEO "gurus". reading a lot of blog posts and articles, and watching hours of talks and presentations. However, no one ever talks about demand generation!
We talk about keyword ranking, content creation, linkbuilding and outreach, social channels ... as means to get more traffic. We also look at content consumption patterns and social sharing to measure engagement. We talk about landing page optimization for CRO, so we convert as much of that engaged traffic.
This is usually the point where all SEO discussions end. We create the strategies, implement them, boost traffic and convert as much of that traffic as we possibly can. Done.
But the ultimate goal of all this work is to close more deals, to get more customers, to increase revenue. We're not doing it for fun. We're doing it to make money (for ourselves, our company or the client we're working for).
If we think about the semantics of the words, "marketing" has always been associated with selling stuff. Therefore, "inbound marketing" can be seen as a way to sell our products/services without interrupting our prospects. But it's still all about making the sale!
SEO is one of the tools we have for inbound marketing (to drive awareness, visits, brand recognition...). Rand's marketing funnel is great to measure the "inbound" part.
But then we need to extend the funnel as all these leads flow into our sales pipeline. Once you attract, engage and nurture leads (the inbound part), they need to be closed by sales to generate the revenue that we need (the marketing part). There's another set of tools, strategies and methods to move leads down the sales funnel and convert them into paying customers.
To become real inbound marketers we need to keep our eyes on the ultimate goal: closing more customers and increasing our revenue. Adn we need to add a couple more skills to our ever growing skill set.
SEO is SEO. It's part of a marketing strategy - nothing more. Nothing less.
Perhaps SEOmoz is wandering off too far? Anyone check if inboundmoz.org was still available? :)
I have been struggling with the term SEO for a while - partly from the negative connotation of spam and dirty tricks, and partly because traditional SEO is only part of what I do. And it in't just the spam stigma. I talk to clients every day who have a variety of definitions of SEO - some think it is just getting links, some still think it is about repeating a few keywords excessively, and some say "I don't want/need any of that TweetterBookPlus crap, content or links, I just want to be number one for everything tomorrow".
I have tossed around a few alternate names for modern SEO - "web presence management" when it runs heavy on the social side for example. And I agree with Tad that "findability" was about the best option for a while, if only it had caught on. I have come to accept that SEO is what our consumers are calling it and we'll have the necessary discussion of what is involved for each particular situation.
I have been tempted to minimize my use of the term SEO and drop "internet marketing" almost completely since it seems to imply either paid ads or affiliate marketing shennanigans. But until users other than those in the industry start searching for visibility, findabiliity, SEO 2.0, web presence, online PR, inbound or whatever else - SEO is what it is (for now).
All that being said, I do like "inbound". It does a good job of covering more than just things that are directly related to search. But will clients get it and embrace it as some of us who know SEO isn't quite on the mark, or will inbound be yet another thing we have to spend a lot of time defining and possibly arguing about what it is and isn't with prospective clients? And when those who just do link spamming start calling that "inbound marketing", will we be looking for a new identity again?
People are always going to fear change. Search engines are constantly upgrading their technology to keep up with the speed of the interenet, and marketers are evolving to keep up with search engines. There's no reason the title can't evolve as well to reflect these changes.
SEO is all about helping you establish your over all web presence in a qualitative way so that each and every foot print of yours on the web gets indexed and your best foot is put forward, for every search made on the web and your web presence is found when someone makes a relevant search for the content related to your web presence.
Though SEO is a subset of online marketing , it is has got its own niche in the whole online marketing scenario. SEO is like establishing your business online and whatever factors apply in real life to establish a business are also applicable for online presence.
SEO not only helps the website owner but also contributes to the web eco system and the search engines qualitatively.
https://blog.webpro.in/2011/02/how-good-seo-contributes-to-larger.html
The post by you on https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/ENHdyVsBNNJ which ensured a creative discussion and am sure instilled confidence in the SEOs and the website owners to look at the presence and progress in a holistic manner is what is expected from the experienced professionals of the search industry.
We should have discussions and blog posts around ‘What is the True Meaning Of SEO’ rather than writing about what it should be called.
These kind of discussions on what is the right term are baseless , meaningless and a waste of time. After all a rose would smell as sweet if called by any other name.
SEO is a service which every website owner will require constantly as the web and as a result SEO are evolving all the time hence every website needs the SEO attention to adapt the site to these changes and keep pace with this evolution. Companies will need to have an in-house SEO team or outsource it to some SEO agency but they cannot ignore SEO.
Today also it is not only about being inbound the on-page factors which offer out bound signals to the bots and the users play a major role in the quality search presence so its not at all about being inbound only.
Content marketing and social media presence are not the new SEO and are certainly not replacing search, they are supplementing SEO along with all the other on-page and off-page factors on which we have been working on till date. Panda or no Panda content has been king since the first web page was published on the web. It is Google who has become capable in picking quality content in 2012 and hence wants to reward sites with quality content with more visibility.
Tomorrow the set of factors influencing search presence may be different that is what SEO is all about – ever evolving.
Finally the SEO industry has come of age and people have got familiar with the term SEO but many still need to be educated about what its true meaning is and what should be expected out of an SEO campaign.
If we bring in a new term in the industry it would confuse them more without serving any purpose.
Part of being and SEO practitioner is to educate the clients. If they have pre-conceived notions that we are all spammers and use seedy tactics to improve site it’s our responsibility to shed light on the good and bad.
Focusing on the clients goals and setting reasonable expectations is all part of the process even if it means sometimes you can fulfill their needs. Like “I want to be number one in Google for xyz”
The tough part to deal with is really the uncertainity around the term 'SEO'. Some people think it's just fixing a few titles and building a few links. It's tough for people to immediately see that there's a lot more to it than that. Perhaps we all need to push for a term that describes SEO who work on social, CRO, content, and more - and inbound marketer sounds like a good start.
It's tough when you see people classifying SEO as a shady art when there are a few individuals taining the name of SEO. It just makes it that much harder for people to accept it as a true profession. When I worked in-house at a large media site, the new CTO and I had a chat and he straight up told me how he thought getting results from SEO might be like waving a magic wand. Then I had another person tell me how he thought 'SEO is played out' and doesn't work anymore.
Maybe 'SEO' should just be about hitting the SEO 101 items like on-site/technical fixes and 'inbound marketing' should be about relationship building (social/PR), content marketing, usability/conversion rate optimization?
Thanks for the links, the stimulating conversation, and your passion. Online Optimization (00's) or Brand Optimization (though that abbreviation not so desirable -when I taught, I was Mr. "P" haha) may be a good description of the breadth of practices at present but it is constantly evolving (Dan above haha). It may be some time before majority can agree on terms to properly reflect the evolution of the industry to masses.
I think it's very important our community pools together like this for proper branding of the industry. These conversations and meeting of minds is integral to progression and positive perception. SEO does have somewhat of a negative connotation because individuals and companies abuse and disrespect it. Particular observations and horror stories trickle down to form some sort of folklore. Unfortunately, the stories of abuse seem to resonate moreso with the masses than the advocacy of Rand, Danny, and a whole lot of respectable practitioners and entities.
However, I think we have a 'good problem.' It's an exciting time for the industry. Rand, I think you're on point with the title. The 'Jedis' really need to step up and 'brand' the industry more, creating new associations to the practice (perhaps eradicating old misunderstandings). I think making a push to use our powers for good, such as helping charities, will help create positive associations to our growing and robust field. There are awesome personalities in the industry. Maybe we need to make our sentiments something tangible (such as forming something like a charity or online movement, which will help brand our practices and genuine intentions). Your head and heart is in a good place, Rand. Keep going with this.
"But, most of all, I love the people." - 'favorited' - I think some people feel the same toward the Wizard.
Wow, great post Rand.
I think that if more people on the internet viewed SEO (or SEM... or Inbound Marketing... or Digital Marketing.. or whatever you want to call it!) the way the SeoMOZ commuhity does, it wouldn't have as bad of a reputation.
The problem is, as you alluded to, the spammers, black hatters, and less than ethical marketers that dominate the majority of the web. I'm sure many people think that SEO involves trying to manipulate or trick the search engines into showing your content, when true SEO is really quite the opposite.
True SEO is a constant battle to make the absolute best content possible. It is an effort to make content that is impossible not to share or promote. It is NOT an attempt to push bad content on unexpecting viewers.
In this way all it really does is push brands to continually improve their content....
Now that doesn't make SEO look so bad, does it?
Keep up the great work Rand.
PS. Inbound.org: great idea, and something this community really needs.
ISOS
Internet Strategy Optimisation Services Covering all the bases
I don't believe for a minute that the majority of SME's and one man band businesses who know they 'NEED' a website, understand or even recognise the term SEO or Search Engine Optimisation. Bigger businesses might do after a bit of pitching. They do collectively know the terms/brands - Google, LinkedIn, Facebook et al. There's a mass of scope out there for servcies putting it all together in understandable packages, business people appreciate clearly defined lines and a range of Internet Strategy Optimisation Services clearly described and hitting the current high notes would be welcomed. I might of course be completely wrong, but my UK clients respond well.
I dont think that SEO's will ever be able to expect anyone outside the industry to understand the vast skill set effective SEO requires. If we re-branded our titles, to something like "natural search strategists" we would still then have to try and explain the definition of that! Fighting a losing battle! Great post though Rand!
"SEO" - now it's not just a link building practice.. it's all about building Brands and generating business..
When Google analytic included TV ADs in this segment, I called it an Marketing Team for our clients.. not only an Online Marketing team :)
How about "Marketing"? :P
It sounds like any potential differentiators we could apply to our methods would, by necessity, narrow our range of focus. I think it comes down to some understanding of the audiences behind the phrases and our reasons for defining ourselves by them (IE: SEO vs Inbound vs Organic, etc)
SEO is a term that's been around for decades. It's well-known and generally accepted to be the practice of improving your site's visibility to search engines. You see varying amounts of people that either think you're a scam or a magician. SEO is a little too heavy on the spam side of things, so the incentive to differentiate is obvious. The argument that what we do incorporates more than the label dictates is valid, but is it a fight that's really worth fighting?
If it's an attempt to change the perception of "SEO eh? Spam." to something more acceptable/digestible, then I think you would be spending just as much time explaining how SEO isn't spam as you would explaining what "inbound marketing" means. The need for a differentiating term WITHIN the industry is a different matter.
I think that, with the nature of SEOs/inbound/organic marketers, we're going to be keeping up on the latest news, so any term that you use to describe the whole marketing process is going to be recognized. So whether it's inbound marketing, digital marketing, black magic or business-audience relationship management and visibility, we'll know what you're saying.
If it's more that we want to change potential client's perceptions of us, using a term other than simply "SEO" might not be productive. In any case, as some other commenters have noted, we're going to be fighting an uphill battle against spammers/blackhats that migrate over to whatever term we use to differentiate, so we'll likely find ourselves in the same situation a few years down the road.
Just thinking out loud here, I guess... ANYHOO
"Inbound marketing" doesn't quite do it for me, because there's a lot that we do that isn't explicitly "inbound." There's a lot of outreach involved in link building, for example, as well as event organization and promotion, branding, reputation management and so on.
I can understand the need to re-brand (not rebrand SEO, but ourselves) when an industry is so rife with low-quality scammers, but what need are we fulfilling? What need to we have to re-brand? From what I can tell, your reason (Rand) for wanting to rebrand is simply that "SEO" doesn't accurately describe our responsibilities. But for whose benefit would we need to adopt a new label? Do we want to be more accurately defined for ourselves and our own companies, in-house or agency? Or do we want potential clients and consumers to better understand what we do?
That question is something that really needs to be answered, I think.
(PS: Sorry for the longwinded comment. I had a lot to say. ;p)
As a marketer the term SEO has always sat uncomfortably with me, yse I can do some of the technical SEO side of things (if not all), but for the last 4 or 5 years (maybe more) most websites I come accross are already well optimised, they just require a bit of additional thought onsite to get them motoring,more interesting is all the other stuff that has to be done to get the sites moving and this is where the marketing side of things comes in. I love the concept of working in inbound marketing, that's why I have a site on www.inboundmarketer.co.uk - I would say that I think people have a preconceived idea about what SEO is - many of them think it's just about the technical onsite side of things whereas others have started using it as an umbrella term for all forms of inbound marketing (as we're defining it). There again the SEO community hasn't done itself any favours over the years and it's probably a good idea in many ways to have a bit of a rebrand. There is a company in the office building I work in that are a pure on the phone sales driven seo firm that don't really do any seo (other than give you a link back from a directory) and the sooner we can stop uor industry being tarnished by the likes of them the better.
For us the challenge is getting our clients (potential especially) to understand that SEO is a term that refers to so much more than SEO. We've been using the term SEM and are very deliberate about how that includes SEO, link building, social media, content generation, measurement, analysis, etc. because in the wake of Panda, "SEO" as our clients understand it (ranking for desirable keywords) is no longer enough.
It seems as though the terminology that we use doesn't mean much unless those who are uneducated about SEO are willing to be open minded and embrace those SEM firms who are doing things for the greater good and bettering the industry. We are thankful for companies like Moz and Distilled who are thought leaders in these efforts.
Thankful for being in the lucky position of using both SEO, Social, Local + PPC, etc, so can just stick to Internet Marketing or Online Marketing, nice and simple :-)
Great discussion. How about this:
What are some terms that describe combined processes of Social, Content, CRO & Analytics to earn traffic (conversions, subscribers, audience, customers), but not from search engines, and frequently, but not necessarily from the internet?
Of course the word marketing is the base here - internet marketing could be the layer above that because the terms are well documented and accpeted. Can we afford to introduce and educate new terms in ever changing dynamics?
New definitions/jargons are already overused in my opinion. Considering not just the clients, but the marketers themselves have confusions or disagreements regarding the usage of the words. Having said that, it is up to the marketers themselves to bring their own process and the definitions into picture that are easy to understand and documentable from generic point of view. This becomes increasingly necessary considering the overlapping need of new technologies or trends. For example when Google says social signals are taken into considertaion for search results, are we supposed to explain that as it is or introduce new words such as social search? The choise is ours. Only thing, don't let the clients get confused because that is where the trouble starts.
We established a matrix function in our company for optimization of cross channel budget allocation and conversion optimzation. Title is head of online marketing optimization. Sounds much better than seo someting and treating seo standalone does not make sense anymore.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is, just do you damn job, bring value, and deliver results -- don't get caught up in titles, just deliver.
No one can succeed without combination of all inbound marketing stuff. If someone want a simple equation than
SEO = Content + Social + Branding = Inbound marketing
The beauty of this equation is: you can add many other ingredients that lead a SEO process to inbound marketing but equation remains always true.
What about technical changes related to SEO, such as on-page HTML updates to main navigation? Technical changes don't really fall under Content, Social, or Branding.
This is true. There's the front-end SEO and the backend SEO. Everyone seems to forget about the technical portion, although the content side is more fun. :)
I wonder how long this blog post has been brewing!
Over 12 months ago, our company made the steps to change titles of 'SEO Programmer' to 'Digitial Marketing Specialists'. This wasn't an attempt to re-brand ourselves through marketing - that's a pretty sinister way of looking at it, like a wolf in sheeps clothing. But rather, it was out of necessity as our staff were continually incorporating strategies that involved all other aspects - social, content, email and everything else under the digital scope (making coffee probably falls under this too). There is no way today that you can work in SEO without plunging yourself in other areas of online.
And who is to say this new title is here to stay.. or inbound marketing. What the digital future holds won't be limited by a title.
SEO is already a deep technial and important field. It's OK to have SEO represent traditional SEO activities and have other terms represent other things.
Clearly SEO is outdated as an umbrella term. But that doesn't make it any less valuable and important. It's just become part of a greater set of disciplines that make up Internet Marketing today
As Rand has pointed out in the past, it's no longer enough to just do 'traditional SEO'. Now website also need to do content marketing on top of traditional SEO.
Call it Inbound Marketing, call it strawberry shortcake for all I care.
The important thing is that clients understand that SEO is not a sufficient term to describe what marketers do on the web these days. It's about education, which Rand and the crew at SEOMoz do such a great job.
Tod Hirsch
Spark Inbound Marketing
Just switched some of my LinkedIn information. I also like your idea for Inbound.org especially with news that Mashable may be gobbled up by CNN... and who knows how CNN is going to screw that up... I just know they will.
"The "specialist/generalist marketers" - those who excel at a particular facet but have competence in all of them - are best poised to win in the upcoming decade of marketing."
Totally agree with you Rand! Great SEO doesn't exist in a silo anymore, and neither does great content marketing or great social media. You have to understand how all the pieces work together. People that aren't willing to broaden their skill set won't be around for long.
Yet another hit. You are an SEO machine. Great post.
I think we need a couple of new acronyms.
Search engine optimisation: optimising for search engines. Optimising what? Your site. On page optimisation. Right? The term "off page optimisation" is sort of - weird. When you do on-page optimisation you're optimising your site to make life easy for search engines (and people!)
Off page "optimisation" - what are you optimising? Nothing really. You're maximising. Maximising coverage. So off page optimisation needs to be called SEP (search engine promotion).
SEO just becomes on-page optimisation, SEP becomes your strategies for promotion of your site in search engines.
Then you've got SEC - Search Engine Cheating. Note that "optimising" is different from maximising - ie. when you do "on-page optimising" you do not "maximise keyword density" you optimise keyword density. Optimal is not maximal. When you're practicing SEC, you maximise keywords and all sorts of other shitty tactics.
When you engage in fraudulent or manipulative link building, you're cheating the system - that's SEC. So SEC is everything bad, SEO is optimising your pages/site (ie. whatever is technically under your control) and SEP is promotion of your optimised site through any number of available channels.
I agree with this point! One of the better comments on this thread. Link building isn't really SEO by definition...
Heck of a post Rand - people just need to remember... Organic is the way it started and still remains the most "white" way of doing what we do.
Nothing automated about our world.
freakn' love it
-Chenzo