The Concept of “SEO”

The literal response to the question “What is SEO” is that is stands for “search engine optimization.” But this isn’t particularly helpful, because what you need is a conceptual understanding of the purpose of SEO, and why SEO is not just important, but vital for the success of your website.

At your organization you are hyper focused on your product or service, and how you can make it better. What you offer the customer is the reason you’re in business and so you have to take it seriously as if your life depends on it, because in many ways it does.

But while you’re obsessing over the performance of your organization and making your product better, what is a potential customer doing with their day? Chances are, they aren’t thinking about you or your struggles to build the perfect product. They’re thinking about how they’re getting through their day, with all of its annoying challenges and ho-hum activities that they’d rather not be doing.

How are you supposed to penetrate all the clutter of their lives and get them to notice you, much less buy something from you?

You can try to shove advertising in their face on social media, and maybe that will work. But there is a better way, and you don’t have to do it by potentially annoying someone who is already annoyed.

Wouldn’t it be better to let them come to you?

By definition, anyone who would buy from you has to have an interest in what you’re selling, but the question is how do you connect their interest with your offer, when it seems like there is a universe between you and them?

The answer is SEO – Search engine optimization.

Enter the Robots

Google has to evaluate the copy on your website and figure out what you offer the world. And google’s tools and algorithms to do this are quite sophisticated and mysterious, but not so mysterious that we can’t figure out what works. IF you do all the right things, google will think you are a match for a prospect who “googled” a particular interest they are trying to satisfy, and then make your information available to the searcher. It is as if google is getting you in the same room as someone looking to solve a particular need.

Copernicus and Search Engine Optimization

In the 16th Century, the Polish astronomer Copernicus figured out that the earth orbited around the sun, and the sun did not orbit around the earth. SEO is very similar. Your potential customer is likely not orbiting around your business (there are notable exceptions). This means that you have to orbit around your customer (not literally because that would be creepy). Once you make the switch in your head that the customer is the center of the universe, and not your business, you will look at the world differently. And more importantly, this Copernican shift in mindset will position you to break through the clutter of your potential customer’s messy life and deliver your message.

SEO is about getting a prospect’s eyes on you so you can take your shot at winning their business.

This process is not easy because you have to anticipate how a potential client might look for the solution to their problem. Then you have to convince google to show them your page in their search results. Once the prospect notices you, they will pay attention to you for only a few seconds before their calculating brain decides they need to stay on your website to solve their problem, or they need to look somewhere else.

The insight of Copernicus changed the way we viewed the cosmos, and even better it set the stage new scientific discoveries about the universe that would come later and revolutionize our understanding of our place in the cosmos. Like the Copernican revolution, once you make the customer the center of your attention, you will also pave the way for your organization to understand itself better and to find the success it deserves.

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