Privacy and respect in search marketing

So I asked RCJordan what he worked in…

He told me that at the first SEO Roadshow, everyone who turned up was told to be private about work, and not to reveal anything about their areas of business to one another.

After a while a group of SEO’s were all seated around a big table, when RCJordan’s wife, knowing nothing of arrangements, turned to someone across the table and asked “So, what area do you work in?”

Silence, awkward silence.

Everyone looked. The person shuffled uncomfortably.

Would it be Real Estate? Pharmaceuticals? Finance? Casinos? Would he even answer? All eyes were across the table.

The SEO finally answered. “Fetish underwear for transvestites”.

Moment’s like that can break the ice at a social event, and a certain level of professionalism means that SEO’s can be much more open about what they’re talking about, because they know exactly who they’re talking to.

It’s very different online.

Michael Martinez recently complained that no one gives him clear examples of why SEO’s make some of the statements they do.

That’s because when we’re online, we’ve not even reached RCJordan’s table.

Not everyone who reads an interactive internet page will leave a message on that page. And it is well known that employees of search engines do read material on forums and similar community sites above the radar.

That’s not paranoia - Matt Cutts is especially known to read such sites, and sometimes even participates under the name of GoogleGuy.

In such instances, it would be an act of potentially gross misconduct to start using one’s own client sites as examples of study for the wider SEO and search engine community to deconstruct.

SEO’s work in commercial fields using commercially sensitive information - the basics of SEO may be the same, but we all have our different advantages present or in development - and this information simply cannot be discussed online without jeopardising client sites and their business models.

In social situations it’s different - you know who you are talking to, and often know what you can talk about. There’s room to discuss some degree of commercial interests.

However, for the most part, SEO’s learn to respect one another on the basis of knowing even just a little of what they are involved with, and the reputation they develop in the industry.

This was very much an issue I faced this week when returning to SitePoint for some coding help.

I originally learned the rudiments of SEO at SitePoint, with Chris Beasley as moderator. I found myself drifting into the SEO forums there, and disagreeing strongly with some of his more abrasive posts.

However, I know from Chris’s work that he is someone with real commercial experience of what he’s talking about. So when I disagree with him, I have to ensure that I take that into account.

I have to afford him some degree of respect because even if we have different opinions, it is the product of difference experiences, and that forces me to ask how wrong my own perception could be.

SEO is a problem-solving discipline that has many specialities and areas of expertise. Because of this, different SEO’s can sometimes come to differing conclusions, based only on the problems their own business model has to tackle. The Google Sandbox is an illustrative example - large volume link-builders know it exists, but content developers are not sure what we’re talking about.

In that regard, even in disagreement, SEO’s who are aware of different people’s reputation within the industry will respect differing opinions.

Where any individual is incapable of affirming basic respect on those grounds alone, they simply effuse a sense of ignorance not only of the SEO industry, but also of the processes, challenges, and problems that SEO’s routinely face - and solve.

In doing so, they are left appearing distinctly amateur.

In search marketing, privacy and respect are general requirements of conversation, offline and online.

It is often only when actual friendships develop, that you learn how justified that respect was in the first place.

So I asked RCJordan what he worked in…and he confirmed what I already knew. And in doing so, simply confirmed his reputation in the industry.