Ok. So I'm showing my age. But that 1970's song is ringing in my head right now as I ponder what an SEO (search engine optimization) person is.

We are men and women who help websites come up well in searches on the Internet. To do that, we've been accused of tricks, under-handed page manipulation, and spamming search engines. Yep. Some search engine optimizers do just that. Please know they are the black sheep of the family. They need to be sent on a very long Outreach quest into the wilderness with no laptop or access to email and must leave all their porn site passwords at home too.

The rest of us who HELP website owners do something entirely different, without the use of crummy stupid dog tricks that foul up search results and create havoc for engine software technology (i.e. algorithms). We teach website owners how to enhance their websites for both the user and the search portal so that both can find what they're looking for.

It's that simple. I'll repeat it.

We help users and search engines find the web pages they are looking for. Our "magical trick" consists of building web pages that have a clear purpose, offer user value, directly relate to what the user is looking for and are found by legitimate means via algorithms programmed to find them quickly. We get our hands into the code itself, which means we must know how to read it and know how to structure it so that it performs and renders well. Many of us are experienced programmers, user interface engineers, or marketing specialists who bring those skills to the table when you hire us. Since search engine technology and companies change the rules on us so often, the better SEO professionals comb SEO newsletters, news sites, news blogs, engine portal FAQ's and participate in SEO/WebDev forums on a daily basis, just to stay currently informed.

We do try to read minds. We can't help it. There's a hundred ways to ask a question and we wish our clients' sites came up everytime you asked for it. But, unless some of us are SEO psychics, we'll likely not know how everyone on the planet is going to search for something. Yes, I've seen some SEO aliens try some pretty crazy stunts to try and outwit engines. They give me a headache. They may be main reason search engines ended free submissions.

Now, as I write this, a song by the Talking Heads is playing in my head. Instead of "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!" I hear Google saying "This is not my beautiful search engine!" or Yahoo! saying "This is not my beautiful new idea to drive more revenue!"

(The truest measure of a real SEO/SEM professional is that we listen to good music and think we sound great in the shower. You can find me under the keyword "bubbles".)

Competitive words are just too expensive these days and unless my site reaches a PR10 in just under 60 seconds when I hit the site submission gas pedal, my time and money are better spent building a website that users like and want to return to. Let's return to the days when the Internet was fun, shall we?