I read a comment on this video that said:
“After I learnt some SEO, I really don’t understand who needs people who specialize only in SEO, that’s just nonsense. Every professional web developer knows SEO and additionally know how to implement it properly. My point is: I don’t think what after five years there will be SEO experts.”
Is there any truth to this? For this person, probably. Average run of the mill small businesses, such as the one this person no doubt runs, might not need a dedicated SEO on call 5 days a week. If you have a 5 page website with local presence you don’t need a full time SEO. If you are an ecommerce store owner that runs thin margins and aren’t sure why you’re still doing this, you don’t need a full time SEO.
Who needs dedicated SEO specialists? Large players in retail, service and non-profit industries. Lets take a look at some of the differences between small SEO and large scale SEO.
Small Business SEO
- A small amount of web pages
- Keyword list is 10-50 keywords
- Long periods of time between reindexing
- Technical obstacles not a big issue
- On Page Optimization takes a week max
- Link building is hard as nobody knows who you are
Large Scale SEO
- An exorbitant amount of web pages
- Quick cycles between reindexing
- Keyword list is hundreds if not thousands of keywords
- Technical obstacles can play a huge part especially with nasty CMS’s
- On Page Optimization can take months
- Link building is easy with an established brand. A large brand can create a page that says “HAi GuYz!!” and have it linked to from all over.
As you can see there are challenges to both large and small scale SEO campaigns.
The biggest challenge a small business will face is attracting links, and the only way they can do that is by differentiation. Your niche is played out and you need to stand out from everyone else.
The biggest challenge a large business will face is infrastructure. Working with the 6 vendors that all have stakes in your website is not an easy task especially as everyone has their own interests. Changes that take a minute to implement on a 20 page lawyer’s website can be stretched over the course of months for a large site with a massive infrastructure.
SEO will exist years from now. The role I envision years from now is an in house online marketing manager that contracts with SEO Agencies to perform SEO. The online marketing manager will have had experience in SEO and know how to keep pressure on the Agency to maintain momentum.
In one way or another, as long as organic search exists, so will SEO.