Rachael Gerson Rachael Gerson

August 21, 2007

No, I don’t work for Google!

I had an experience this past weekend that I feel fairly certain many others in the industry can commiserate with. Surrounded by many friends and family members, I found myself asked over and over what I was doing with my life. I already had this conversation multiple times when I joined the SEER team, so one might think it would be easy by now, right? I wish!

My response depended primarily on three things: who I was speaking with, how much time I had to fully explain the answer… and if their eyes started to glaze over before I was finished! I found myself asking a leading question to determine the knowledge of my audience: “Do you ever search for things on Google?” When I got a “yes” response, it made the rest of the conversation flow more smoothly. Imagine my chagrin when I received “no” responses for not just the Google question, but also for searching for anything online, for going online, and for even having a computer! That took some creative thinking that ended with me comparing Google to the Dewey Decimal System and the phone book. I know, both examples are a stretch, but it was an older relative who really wanted to understand exactly what I did, so I did my best!

In the easier conversations, I was able to relate the experiences of my friends and family back to what I do at SEER. They told me themselves that they almost never search past the first page in the SERPs. They recognized the value of getting the keywords right to reach the site’s target market. Once they comprehended the importance of these two key elements of SEO, it was just a matter of explaining the details of how SEO agencies work with clients to develop their sites to be more search friendly.

I did have a few friends who work in either marketing or IT who immediately reacted with comments like, “Wow, you work in SEO?” I hadn’t even used the acronym, but they were already familiar the term “search engine optimization” from their own experiences. Each of them told me how massive this industry is becoming and just how hard it is to break into it. One friend had already heard of SEER! Unfortunately, this level of knowledge seems to be the exception, not the norm.

The whole experience got me thinking. I’m not going to over-generalize based on people who attended the party, but it did seem that people in their 20’s were the ones who might already be somewhat familiar with SEO, while those in their 30’s had less knowledge of it but still found it easy to understand. It was adorable listening to my mom explain what I do, even if it wasn’t perfectly accurate, so it might be inferred that the baby boomers haven’t completely grasped the industry. If this is the trend for the rest of the population, how can we improve the awareness of SEO?

It seems that most people do not understand that the search engines aren’t just magically producing the best possible results for their searches. People can easily understand the marketing industry as a whole, but many do not realize that search engine optimization is a form of marketing that affects them daily.

Has anyone in the industry had an experience like mine? How about any readers who are clients of SEO agencies – Have you had any difficulty explaining the purpose of working with SEO and PPC consultants and how it will benefit your company?

11 COMMENTS

  • Larry Bailin says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 3:13 pm

    At first I started answering hte “what do you do?” question with, “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out” but that still left the question out there. Now I just say, “marketing”".

  • Rachael says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 3:18 pm

    Larry, I seriously did that same thing for my first two weeks working for SEER. Not only is the company so innovative, but the industry changes so rapidly that it’s hard to have a steadfast answer. Now I have a solid understanding of the industry, but don’t always have the time to go into a detailed explanation, so I’ve resorted to “marketing” or “internet marketing” at times, too.

  • wil says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 3:29 pm

    I always say Internet Marketing, otherwise people just scratch their heads and say…huh, what?

  • Eric says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 4:07 pm

    I found your post quite fun because even though I don’t do anything similar to you, however I do work in “IT”, my response to “what do you do?” varies as well depending on who I am talking to. I have a pretty slimed down version that is accurate for most people when I don’t care to elaborate. But the dark cloud void of the word “IT” brings confusion to most people above the 40 year-old threshold (who are not in the industry)

  • Rachael says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 5:12 pm

    Yes, I’m really going to comment on my own blog – I was talking to my sister about the blog that I just wrote, kind of laughing about how no one at the party really knew what I did. She informed me that not only did she understand what I do, but she was telling other people at the party so they’d know, too. I was a little impressed that she’d grasped it so easily, so I asked her to explain it back to me, thinking maybe I’d have a better way to explain it to other people. “Rachael sells ad space on Google.” *sigh* I have a little more work to do.

  • Burgo says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 8:03 pm

    “Has anyone in the industry had an experience like mine?”

    Check out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/apparently-i-work-for-google to see just how MANY people empathise.

  • Chris says:
    August 21, 2007 @ 11:17 pm

    By my own experience, there’s lots of people who have the wrong frame of reference. They think of Google as the Internet’s biggest phone book. Understandably, its probably its closest analog equivalent but it’s not really that accurate. It’s more fluid and democratic than that.

    So if someone doesn’t understand how search engines because they have the wrong frame of reference how can you explain to someone the benefits of hiring your company? How do you explain what you do when the person in front of you has no frame of reference to work from?

  • Patrick says:
    August 22, 2007 @ 2:57 pm

    Spot on Rachael! I normally say internet marketing as well. Then when they dig for what kind I pump myself up for a long drawn out frustrating conversation.

  • leslie says:
    August 23, 2007 @ 1:13 pm

    Whenever I tell friends or family that I work in Marketing, the first thing they say is “Don’t call me!” Then I have to explain that I don’t work in telemarketing.

  • Steve says:
    August 29, 2007 @ 12:08 pm

    I deal with clients every day who are mortgage professionals, not IT or web experts, and it falls to me to explain to them exactly what SEO is, and how it works…I’ve had some reasonably funny results, especially, as you mentioned in the 40+ crowd. On the other hand, I’ve had some very eager and very involved clients that were well in to their 50’s…I think once anyone involved in any kind of business understands the vital connection between all this “computer stuff” and their pocketbook, they start to pay attention.

  • Rachael says:
    August 29, 2007 @ 12:30 pm

    I absolutely have to agree: Once people see that connection between SEO and ROI, there’s a lot more interest, or at least more willingness to try to develop a greater understanding. Wil sent us a great article yesterday that stated that search engine marketers who measured ROI has risen to 88% since 2005. In addition, I know we get a good amount of traffic from people using our tool that calculates SEO ROI, so I know there’s definitely interest.

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