When I was a kid, i used to read Asterisk and Obelix comics. They were fun. Other than the main two characters (Asterix and Obelix), probably Panoramix the Druid is one among the top characters that someone would remember. You know, Panoramix was the man, he knew the recipe for becoming super strong! With his leadership, his tribe could kick-ass any roman army. He could prepare his magic poison with the ingredients only he knew. All this Panoramix wisdom made him get respected and obeyed among his fellowers.

Does all this story sound familiar? Welcome to the world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. The business model of a SEO consists on getting you ranked high on search engines, so all your potential customers can find you easily on say, google. Doesn’t that sound appealing? Of course, everybody wants their business to show up on first page on Google, right?. I haven’t worked with many seos, but, I can give you some advice about this business, which i hope will be useful to you, specially if you’re not in the IT industry. First things first, all seos, and I mean all of them, will sell you the idea that they know how to get your website in a good position in search engines. They have the wisdom, like Panoramix. But… you know what? this wisdom are just a bunch of rules that Google itself provides to the public domain, like this one or this. And this rules are all about common sense (I’m sorry if i disappoint somebody, but no, seo has nothing to do with magic, it’s all about common sense).

The reality is that a goof portion of a the traditional seo’s duties is to sell himself as a seo, the one with the magic wand, and generally, they are pretty good at it. Think about it for a minute: why would you say google is the top search engine? Because it gives you the contents you search for, and it is really good at it. So, in order for google to stay the n1 search engine, they need to provide an engine that returns the content that the user asks for. So its all about the content. If your content is good, people and other websites will link to you, and these are some of the parameters google and other search engines use. No black magic here, remember?

I’m not saying a seo is someone trying to cheat you, my point is different: my point is that a really good seo is not just a seo, but a marketing guy. A marketing person will not just tell you how to create the links of your website and leave. The marketing guy will stay. He will create quality content for you. He will get in touch with potential customers or resellers. He will get you known in blogs, social media, or whatever stuff may come up tomorrow. He will get you linked in other websites, which few (if any) ordinary seo does. And I’m talking about serious websites here, not just link directories and crap like that: the websites your customers would visit, for example. Now that is a lot of work, not unlike just saying how to implement your website under the promise or hope it will improve your visibility in search engines.

So, next time you think on improving your visibility on google, consider hiring someone who really knows about (online) marketing and sales, not just a druid.