The Women and the Men of SEO

When we browse the Web in the search for better online marketing channels or search engine optimization advice, we cannot ignore an unexpected reality: the number of women in SEO. Two or three years ago SEO was a geeky world and the strongest name we heard were male names: Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall, Matt Cuts and so on. And now I cannot imagine a world without Lisa Barone, Rae Hoffman (Sugarrae), Jill Whalen, Vanessa Fox, Marissa Mayer and so on.

Being a woman of the search myself, I am quite proud to see “my kind” making waves on the Web. And I am not at all surprised to see so many women doing a great job in this industry: women are good communicators, their attention to detail is remarkable, they are very prompt and tend to answer customer queries faster than men and the list could go on. You don't even need to look at the statistics to understand the facts. But there's another aspect of this issue I'd like to underline.

We are on the Web so we do not really have a physical presence. The online existence is purely spiritual. Intellectual. The Web is the vessel that carries unique powers, some of witch we'd never show in the real world. Shy people seem strong online, strong people express their softer nature. And this particular revealing of the self doesn't have too much to do with being a woman or a man. It's more about overcoming personal limits and pushing those limits up to the point of becoming a way of life.

The women of SEO are not better than the men of SEO because they are women. They just have different traits that make their performance somehow more effective. Their presence should be acknowledged but their professional skills have little to do with their sexual identity. Besides, we've all learned search from our male counterparts: they were here first.

So when we think about the women of SEO we do not need to build up false pedestals and praise them as pioneers (believe me, I've seen that a lot). We need to understand the women are different and their approach of the SEO industry goes to a somehow deeper level because women accomplish their tasks with concern for all the areas involved, no matter how small. Men tend to be more general in their approach and they focus only on the most important aspects of the search, aiming for the most profitable channels. None of the techniques is erroneous, but in my opinion attention to detail provides for better results on the long-term. There are, of course, some men of SEO who pay careful attention to detail, but not enough to include this trait as a general trait of the SEO professionals, regardless of their biological identity.

Recently I faced a client who asked whether hiring SEO women is better for his business. In his particular case my answer was yes: the site needing optimization sells cosmetic products. It's pretty obvious that women already know this industry. But when it comes to websites that target general audiences, I'd suggest to “hire the SEO you trust.”

Unfortunately SEO was misused and right now many of the small companies scattered around the web are immersed in a shadow cone. It's quite hard to decide who to trust and it's even harder to understand the real value of an SEO campaign, especially because many Web users believe that everything on the Web comes free. While many resources are indeed free, and SEOs do use them in an SEO campaign, what people really forget to place on their expenses list is time.

In an SEO campaign the time spent on research is the most important aspect and the most valuable too. An SEO customer will have to pay for time and search engine marketing channels such as paid directories, paid advertising, paid links and so on. It's true that anyone could buy directory listings or advertise through paid channels, but the SEO knows how to target these resources, how to write the ads, what keywords to use and so on. Because SEO is a time consuming process and there are almost never enough SEM channels involved, the SEO costs of a professional campaign are not affordable for all. This is somehow a paradox because on the long-term SEO does save money and provides for good return of investment.

Those who cannot pay the price will almost always remain at the end of the SERPs, unless they learn SEO themselves and join this challenging industry.

A very good resource for beginners is Aaron Wall's SEO Book. That's good to start with but it's not enough. The SEO education should continue and the main resources to enhance it are the SEO blogs of the professionals listed at the beginning of this article.