above the fold (seo)
Why SEO's Are Like Your Mechanic, Only Cleaner
posted by: Scott Dodge - 08.10.2011I always wear a lab coat to work, too.
As a relatively recent addition to the Internet Exposure team, I tend to have to explain to family and friends exactly what it is that I do here. I’m sure other SEO’s have been in my shoes – it can get quite difficult explaining your job to those on the outside. Ever tried explaining SEO to your Grandmother? It's not easy. Believe me.
Nick LeRoy, a Minneapolis-based SEO (and Matt Damon's doppelganger), wrote a great blog post regarding the old “Pick Two” adage. I was first introduced to this concept in the automotive realm:
Pick two –
- Fast
- Cheap
- Reliable
It makes perfect sense. You can buy a car that is fast and cheap, but it won’t be reliable. You can buy a car that’s cheap and reliable, but it won’t be fast. You can buy a car that’s reliable and fast, but it won’t be cheap.
As Nick put it, this concept applies directly to your SEO strategy.
This got me thinking.
So, as a car guy, and a fan of metaphors, I like to help explain myself to those outside the industry with one that I’m particularly proud of – we’re like a mechanic, but for your website. We usually don’t build sites, but we tweak them. We make them perform better. We pop the hood, climb underneath, and get our hands dirty. We scour every inch of your site, looking for ways to make your site perform better.
There are many components to a car – the body, the chassis, the engine, the powertrain, and so on. These all have a direct relation to components of your website.
- Body = your web design.
- Chassis = the framework that your site is built upon.
- Engine = the coding that runs your site.
- Powertrain = your marketing strategy that moves your website to the places that you want your business to go.
As SEO’s, we overlook all these aspects, with a single goal in mind – to make your site perform to the best of its ability. After all, what’s the point of having that V12 Ferrari if it’s only running on nine cylinders?
Pull your website into the Internet Exposure garage to see what we can do for your business today!
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Photo Credit: Nick Ares, via Creative Commons
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Comments
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4 Comments:
Hey Scott – thanks for the mention. You’re absolutely right. I based my entire post off the ‘car metaphor’ and obviously transitioned it to fit SEO. I think the transition worked perfect! I’m also glad you made reference to explaining SEO to clients. I too created an analogy that I posted last week here http://nickleroy.com/a-simple-non-offensive-seo-analogy-to-share-with-clients . I think both convey SEO very well!
Hey Scott, thanks for the help. I can’t count how many times I’ve told someone what it is I do and they think my entire job is to click my link on google as many times a possible. I guess people have high expectations for me.
I never thought about it but being an SEO is a lot like a mechanic. If you think about it even deeper, you have mechanics that specialize in imports, certain kinds of engines, specific models/makes, etc… just like SEO has guys that are experts on conversions, Wordpress, eCommerce, etc.
Nick,
No problem – thanks for the inspiration.
And thanks for sharing that blog post – you nailed it! Always love reading your stuff.
Sam –
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Yeah – it can get incredibly difficult to explain exactly what it is that we do all day long. I figured that if my friends and family needed a metaphor, maybe it would help out for clients.
And yes – I was thinking about making that transition to specializations, but, as a car guy, I could go on for hours :)
Glad you enjoyed the post!