Generalists Vs. Specialists In SEO: Whats The Best Approach?
A couple of months ago, I talked about how the role of an SEO professional is undergoing a serious transformation.
Yes, our primary job is still to drive organic traffic and increase organic revenuebut the way that we do that now has changed so much that weve had to acquire additional skills in order to make that happen. Nowadays, youhave to think and act like a content developer, user experience advocate, digital strategist, creative marketer and cheerleader if youre going to survive in SEO.
That piececaused a bit of a stir, and it sparked some crucial discussionswith a lot of people I deeply respect. Two key trends popped up in particular:
Joe Hall wrote a rebuttal talking about how our job as an SEO should only be SEO, citing some great case studies for tactics that are purely SEO things like redirects, URL structure, code review on a full AJAX site, and Panda/Penguin cleanup.
Joes article isnt wrong. Mine isnt either. But neither one of them, as individual articles, tells the full story of what SEOs are completely responsible for in 2015. Combined, theyre getting close.
Are there some instances when you can just implement tech improvements for a site-wide increase in organic traffic? Yes. Are there some instances when you can just implement digital marketing tactics for a site-wide increase in organic traffic? Yes. Are there even more instances when you have to do both? Hell yes.
You have to at least have a thorough understanding of how both sides operate to survive in this industry. The problem is that while everyone is demanding marketers to be more technical/analytical, I dont see that same plea for the tech folks to think like marketers.
And thats not entirely fair. Its just making the gap larger, where both sides think their way is the only way to do SEO: marketing (content development, UX researcher, digital strategist) or technical (URL structure, code review, penalty cleanup).
The fact of the matter is that as long as Google keeps changing its algorithm, SEOs will have to keep changing their tactics.
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Generalists Vs. Specialists In SEO: Whats The Best Approach?