The democratization of SEO

How much time and money do we collectively burn by fixing the same kinds of basic, "binary," well-defined things over and over again (e.g., meta tags, 404s, URLs, etc) when, instead, we could be teaching others throughout our organizations not to break them in the first place?

As long as we "own" technical SEO, there's no reason (for example) for the average developer to learn it or care — so they keep making the same mistakes. We proclaim that others are doing things wrong, but by doing so we only reinforce the line between our skills and theirs. We need to start giving away bits of the SEO discipline, and technical SEO is the easiest piece for us to stop owning.

It's time for more democratization, education, collaboration, and investment in open-source projects so we can fix things once, rather than a million times

Transcript

1. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF SEO
2. I have a confession
3. I HATE technical SEO.
5. Cool, right?
6. But this is cooler!
7. @jonoalderson | Yoast Or, maybe not...
8. Round we go...
9. So what?
10. Is it just me?
11. bit.ly/tech-seo-poll
13. Is this a problem?
15. But we’re optimisers, right?
16. So, how optimal are we?
17. There are between 40,000 & 380,000 “technical SEO” folks on LinkedIn
18. Based on my survey, that’s 1-9 million hours
19. The average US SEO salary is $46,466 ( payscale.com )
20. That’s somewhere between $20m & $200m of ‘waste’ every month
21. But… why?
22. Think about doctors
23. They fix the root cause
24. And it’s not just tech SEO...
25. So we just run campaigns.
26. Can we fix this?
27. Except, our model is flawed
28. Digital marketing Technical SEO
29. Writing Digital marketing Technical SEO Web dev
30. Digital marketing Technical SEO Web dev Writing Digital marketing
31. Digital marketing Technical SEO Project Management Training Web dev Psychology Marketing Strategy Writing
32. Digital marketing PWAs Technical SEO Project Management Training Web dev Psychology Javascript Performance Marketing Strategy Devops & Docs Writing Analytics
33. Digital marketing PR Creative & Design PWAs Technical SEO Project Management Training Web dev Psychology Javascript Performance Marketing Strategy Devops & Docs Writing Analytics Outreach
34. Digital marketing PR Creative & Design PWAs Technical SEO Project Management Training Web dev Psychology Javascript Performance Marketing Strategy Devops & Docs Writing Analytics Outreach Everything else
35. We need a new model
36. Let’s go back in time
39. Today’s model
43. Learn all of the things
44. Rockstars don’t scale
45. We’re not rockstars
46. “Buy them beer.”
47. ...and nobody likes us, anyway!
48. I HATE technical SEO.
49. I’m a little ashamed to identify as an SEO.
50. Maybe the problem is us
51. Every time that...
52. We build walls
53. Control is not the answer
54. It’s not just developers
55. We’re clinging on
56. Stop being rockstars
57. Why now?
58. Gutenberg
59. Gutenberg yoast.com/what-is-gutenberg/
60. So what?
63. The problem with Schema...
66. Err…?
68. Voice
69. Isn’t this a bit of a tangent?
70. Alex Shiels, flickr.com/photos/wceu/42086304325/
71. Alex Shiels, flickr.com/photos/wceu/42086304325/
72. Alex Shiels, flickr.com/photos/wceu/42086304325/
73. For years, we’ve worked with individual [websites], one at a time, to help them [add schema], and never once did we think to ask them what CMS they were running “
74. A new paradigm
75. Except...
76. So...
77. They’ll fix the root causes
78. DO NOT WANT?
79. “But I do content”
80. What happens when everybody’s website is fixed?
82. Don’t react like an SEO
83. Let’s be democratic
84. Let’s be open source
85. Here’s something scary...
86. They’re going to mess it up.
87. They don’t understand SEO
88. But you do...
89. So here’s the pitch...
90. Let’s stop competing.
91. I want you to get involved with open source
92. make.wordpress.org
93. I get that this sounds scary
95. I get that’s not for everyone
96. So I also want you to stop being “the SEO”
97. When did you last...
98. We can build bridges
99. Stop fixing your problems.
100. Start fixing our problems.
101. Lets optimise us.
102. Thanks.