6 things I learnt in my 7th year as a professional SEO

Today marks the seventh anniversary of me becoming a digital marketer (you can read about my first year, second year, third year, fourth year, fifth year, and sixth year to follow my journey).

Sadly, this one isn’t cheerful either but it’s short at least.

1. AI in SEO makes me anxious

I’m cheating a bit and just summarising a blog post I already wrote with the same title (but at least it was summarised by a human!) I was optimistically cautious of AI in SEO at first but that went away quite quickly and a significant lack of critical thinking within the industry and a worrying mix of uncritical optimism, “keep calm and carry on” attitudes, and vibe coping makes me wish I only had to know about it via how BERT worked.

2. The grifting keeps on growing

I know even before I joined the industry that SEO grifting has been around since the very early days but at least while I’ve been here it’s become very invasive recently. I saw an post excerpt via Lily Ray claiming that SEO agencies “don’t care about clients getting mentioned in ChatGPT” and that is a categorical lie. It’s False. No Way. Not This Time. It’s Totally Made Up. Pure Fiction. It’s Fiction. It’s Fiction. They Made It Up. The constant SEO spam I get in my inbox is par for the course but the “GEO” stuff adds a bitter taste to the snake oil.

3. Web performance is awesome but it’s so hard to get things implemented

I enjoy my Web performance work and I’m still trying to get people to see the connections with UX rather than SEO and ranking, something I’ve talked about before and keep talking about to anyone who will listen. But it’s difficult to get movement on recommendations and I try so many different angles and show case studies^[1] and it’s never enough to get work done.

Fundamentally, there’s a lot of theory and guides and not enough practical and (conclusive) results and if we talked about that more and changed things, we’d all be in a better position.

4. I still don’t feel like I’m doing meaningful work

I wrote about this last year and nothing has changed (mainly because work is work and I’ve done nothing to change it from my ened. I can’t ignore what’s happening out there right now and while SEO isn’t there to change that (at least on its own), I don’t always see the real changes I make for whoever I make them for. I’m not an expert or some kind of figurehead for anything so I won’t know if I’ve inspired anyone from a professional perspective. So the disillusionment grows. Still got some thinking to do there.

5. There’s not a lot of deep critical thinking going on

This isn’t a new thought but it’s grown stronger in my mind as the proliferation of AI continues. I don’t see a lot of deep human thinking when new processes or ideas emerge and it puzzles me because as search professionals, we’re meant to show our knowledge to people who need it rather than nodding along. I see a lot of chasing and “yes, and” responses but not a lot of “okay, but”. Questions I feel we should be asking are:

• Has this been tested at all?
• What’s the methodology behind this?
• What/where are the biases?
• What are the pros and cons of doing it this way?
• Is there an ROI and is it measurable?
  • And if there is no financial ROI, is there any worthwhile goal here?

I’m not business-minded (should I be admitting that? Well, I have now!) but it’s part of my job so I do my best and I feel like diligence requires scrutiny to make sure you going in with a clear vision and you can mitigate for general problems.

6. SEO has a reputation problem and I don’t think figureheads do enough to change that

SEO gets a very bad rep in tech circles, whether it’s amongst web devs, on LinkedIn, or in tech publications like The Verge. I can’t say it’s wholly justified because it’s a deeper issue that requires nuance and understanding what SEO is and what it isn’t. Instead of reacting to “SEO is X, Y, and Z” with negation and leaving it there, we should be acknowledging what happens in the industry but also outlining what is happening (grifters want to make money and exploit their clients with harmful practices and no strategy) and keeping things honest about what SEO actually is and should be. Be more Kirby!

I appreciate people like Lily Ray who try to demystify a lot of what is talked about in SEO and it’s good she’s the voice of reason in general tech articles about the industry. We honestly need more of that from those in the speaker circles and less grandstanding as a whole. How SEO is perceived affects everyone from execs to VPs and not just the same faces we see in every panel at every conference.

Shout outs

Thank you to anyone who has helped me on my journey this year and listened to me complain. I don’t know if I’ll ever meet some of you since all the events are on a Thursday when I can’t attend them or you live in the US but you know who you are if you’re reading this.