Every day there seems to be a greater number of people competing for search engine optimization business. The question that begs to be asked is, Why? Why are there so many people trying to break into the SEO business?

It is likely they've heard that it's a lucrative field. But there are plenty of other lucrative fields that are holding fairly steady right now. Many of them require a person to work a lot harder – in terms of physical labor – than optimization work does. Could that be the reason that the SEO industry is seeing so many new upstarts?

I think there is the perception that SEO is easy work. Easy money. After all, what do you do all day? You look at websites and add a few keywords here and there and watch the customer rise in the search engines. Only, it isn't quite that easy.

SEO is deceptively simple. That is, it looks simple, but it really isn't so grade school easy. There is a lot to consider when analyzing a client's website to determine where an increase in traffic, conversions, or other metrics can take place. It isn’t always related to the on-page optimization of the site. Sometimes, a change may have to do with the site design or with the way that it is being marketed. Only experience can teach you those things.

Also, another reason why there is so much SEO industry competition these days is due to the economy. I have personally spoken to people that have been laid off from large marketing and advertising agencies that all of a sudden want to learn SEO. Then these people start their own consulting or service SEO firm.Great, just more people to compete against…

New SEOs tend to focus solely on search engine rankings, not much else. But if your improvements don’t lead to measurable increases in your important metrics data then it's just a waste of time and money. What you need is someone with Web marketing experience to analyze your unique situation and help you identify areas within the broad range of marketing online to get you past your current business situation. It may or may not be an SEO issue, but if it is then you certainly don't want someone who used to be a mechanic but who thought it might be more fun to be an SEO – someone who's only been an SEO for one week.

Nick Stamoulis on Monday, October 12, 2009
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