Being an SEO myself, I come across wide varieties of SEOs everyday. I interact with them through their blogs, IM, social media and forums. I learn a lot from them and will continue to do so.
There are a lot of intelligent SEOs out there but I have a feeling that too many people declare themselves as SEOs prematurely. Being called SEO is something which makes people feel good and hence they always tend to attain the title as early as possible. Most of them Only a Few of them are on the right track but very far from the stage where they can be called genuine white-hat successful SEOs.
I read an excellent article by Jill Whalen - "The Evolution of a Search Marketer". All you SEOs and wanna-be(s) read it, and if you think the article tells your own story then don’t get surprised. It’s the story of most of us. However, I feel that the article needs to be updated now and further stages of evolution should be added as it was written some 2 years ago.
Ok, coming back to newbies. Let me show you a chat conversation that I had a few months ago with a so called SEO. It is a real chat, I have edited some grammars and some not-so-pleasant words.
Conversation:
Him: Dude, what are you doing these days?
Me: I have a SEO project and my own sites to maintain, it’s too much hectic these days
Him: that’s cool
Me: ya kinda
Him: by the way, can I help you in the SEO project
Me: that’ll be great for me
Him: so give me the details
Me: tell me about your experience first, the keywords you ranked for
Him: I am doing a lot of reading, ask me anything
Me: dude, SEO is not about to read, it’s a "to-do" thing
Him: you can ask me any question about SEO, and then see
Me: but what’s the point asking you questions, will the customer ask you questions? no, he will want your previous results. You’ll have to show him your current SERPs.
Him: SERPs what?
Me: Search it on Google
Him: ok, wait
I have more such conversations in my chat archive. If you want some of them ask me :P. I’d also like to clear that I have no intentions to des-respect anybody. Being a newbie is not something which one should be ashamed of. We were all noobs once. Were’nt we?
I wanted to throw some more light on this topic. But not feeling like writing now. Ok some other time then (in part-2 *hint*).
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Hrrrm… interesting article. indeed, a client doesn’t ask questions. they only want results!
I have been in these conversation again and again, I am very glad that you posted about it. These days every one seems to be knowing everything on SEO.