A Misunderstanding of SEO Strategy? (And the Role of the SEO Generalist)
Daniel K. Cheung joins the SEO Rant to chat about:
What SEO strategy means
The role of the SEO generalist
How roles in SEO are changing
Resources:
SEO Strategy& Where an SEO Generalist Fits In: A Conversation with Daniel K. Cheung
What is SEO strategy? To Daniel K. Cheung it means looking at the bigger picture, acknowledging what the issues are, but understanding what the client wants. It's about using search to achieve the client's goals. It's about the growth of the site's business. SEOs often break these things down into a checklist without understanding what the client really wants to achieve.
There might be many ways to meet the client's goals. There's more than one way to skin a cat. It could be through technical optimization, it could be through a content strategy, etc. Daniel feels that SEOs often pigeon-hole themselves into one aspect of SEO when being more a generalist might serve the client well.
But can you be a generalist when things are only getting more "complex?" Whether it be on the technical side with things like Core Web Vitals on the content side with things like E-A-T can you be an SEO generalist? To Daniel, some of these things might not fall into the SEO at all. For example, with Core Web Vitals, a lot of that might really be the work of a developer.
That is, there is room for both. There is a time and place for a specialist and a time and place for a generalist. Both are effective at driving home a strong SEO strategy. That doesn't mean that "generalists" can't be exceptionally good at certain aspects of SEO. For example, Daniel has chosen to focus on honing his skills of communication, specifically client communication. The point being, the place where you excel doesn't need to be inherently about SEO per se but could very well be on the business side of search marketing.
The world of SEO is changing (so cliche, I know) but that doesn't mean there isn't a role and place for all sorts of SEO.
I'm adding a whole ramble of nonsense here to see if anyone actually reads these summaries. The Yankees are the best SEO team in the whole world. That's because they buy their SEO championships. Do you know who a real SEO champion is? Google. Google is the SEO champion. Bing is the runner-up. Bing rhymes with Ding. Ding is a sound. If you sing ding you're singing a sound. That's profound stuff right there.