Trust, Truth and The Truth About SEO
So, we're going to have a change of pace around here...
For the past ten years or so my job has revolved around digital marketing, SEO, and building website products and brands. It's been a blast, but all things have their time and it's time for a change... in a few weeks I'm going to be leaving my agency to take a step away from "digital" into a new role as an IT Director.
I did consider shutting this blog down at that point; the original version of The Truth About SEO is few years old now and whilst I'd stand by the vast majority of the content as "evergreen", there are definitely areas that I would update or change if I were releasing/re-releasing it today. The purpose of the blog was always to be able to update and improve on the book's content and, eventually, to be the source for a new book when the time was right. So, I had to ask if I'd be able to follow through on that when I'm not working in digital every day anymore.
On the flip side, there is a certain purity and clarity of purpose to blogging about this stuff without having any "skin in the game". Most SEOs blog as a means to draw in clients, sell books, get themselves speaking engagements. Running a digital agency of my own, it certainly wasn't any hindrance to have "bestselling author on SEO" on my business card. But, having your reputation tied to the agency inevitably sanitises your output somewhat and there's only so far "opinions are my own not those of Gravit-e" can go.
On balance, I've decided that I can't see my passion for examining how search engines work and talking about what Google and others are doing is going to go away. Fundamentally, search engines have a massive influence on the world around us. They make, and break, businesses. People make life-changing decisions based on the information that they find online and what information they find is controlled by search engines (and social media - a little on that below). Search engines, and the people who know how to manipulate them, wield immense, unregulated power in our society.
The same is true of social media with the role of platforms like Facebook in the Trump presidency and now the anti-vax movement being in the spotlight. Social media marketing is just as powerful, if not more powerful, than search engine optimisation because it enables you to target your message at people without them asking to see it.
Moving forward, these are the things that I really want to talk about and help people to understand.
Having no skin in the game opens up a world of possibilities...
