Search Engine Optimizer (SEO)
Firstly let me confess that I’m an old school worker and I have only a vague notion of what this new-fangled job actually entails. In fact I’m probably giving myself away in that being an SEO has probably existed as a career for ten or twenty years. That’s how out of the loop I am.
Lately there have been rumblings across the Strayan political spectrum that it’s about time we stopped working so many hours and maybe cut back to a four day working week. At the same time the employment gurus say, we should also extend the capacity for employees to work from home and actually have to physically attend the work space less often.
Well let me tell ya, as far as the four day week goes, they were talking about this thirty years ago when I first entered the workforce – even tried it on a trial basis. So what happened? Well I don’t know for sure, but there seemed to be some sort of widespread emotional backlash and people ended up working even harder and longer hours. From the 40 hour week to the 60 hour week or more. It was as if our fear of change overcame us. The sheer horror that we might have to spend more time not going to work and actually have to communicate with our loved ones, and I dunno, fill the vast empty void of our lives with learning stuff and reading books perhaps.
Instead we work ourselves even harder and rush home to fill our minds with the banal mind numbing shit of reality shows. Actually that’s a cop out and an ill-considered assumption. I discussed the nature of work with a friend who is under 30 and who actually works as an SEO, and he/she said where the hell have you been? Nobody I know (under 30) works 9 to 5 five days a week any more. We’re all contactors and we mostly work from home. We might show up in an actual office space a couple of times a week, but we can be more productive from a remote location where we can get some peace and quiet.
To my mind I think this is what will become of the public sector in the next decade or so. Most if not all employees will be contractors who bid for certain packages of work, which will take the form of projects and have a deadline, say a month or two. They will negotiate a price, and mostly complete the task online in a remote location (i.e. home), where they can choose their hours of work 24/7, and maybe commute to a physical work location occasionally.
I understand that statistics indicate that employees who work from home are generally more productive than those who are office based, in white collar professions at least. It may also be more economically viable for the employer too. Plenty of stats on this:
https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-work-from-home
Okay, I’m procrastinating, because I’m working from home (geez it would be great if I got paid for pumping out this stuff). What does an SEO actually do?
Well essentially, getting straight to the point, and without prevaricating, or beating about the bush and obfuscating the issue like Johnny Howard did when we tried to instigate a Republic, but instead providing some clarity and explication… they get paid to encourage people to visit your business website, so these visitors will hopefully buy your product. Simple eh?
How do they do this? Well it involves a lot of complicated algorithms, a lot of levers and pulleys, and the fragmentation of the audience due to alternative forms of entertainment, sideshows, circuses… yes, that was a somewhat obscure Seinfeld reference (Kramer has to fire Rachel Welsh from the Tony Award winning stage production because she doesn’t move her arms when she tap-dances).
How they do it is they write articles on relevant issues that link back to their clients and send these articles to other related entities which they source as potential customers of the client. These articles can take the form of blogposts, facebook posts, facebook ads and other forms of advertorial material. In turn a major player like Google or Yahoo will then see all the ‘hits’ or links an entity or business website is receiving online and will rank that entity high on their search engine list. Ergo, when you or I think, gee I need an architect to design that new extension to the Guggenheim (yes! Another vague Seinfeld reference. Go me. Maybe they should be paying me) we put ‘architect’ into a search engine and bam – that business with all the hits and links comes up top of the list and gets our custom… or something like that.
Imagine that. You’re at a party breaking the ice. So what do you do for a crust, pal? I’m a plumber. Oh yeah, I’m a mechanic, I’m an accountant… I’m a Search Engine Optimizer… What? Gedoutta here!!! Go get a real job ya shmuck. Can’t say that any more, cos the world has changed.
I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’m in the right ball park. Actually, I feel like that crusty middle aged public servant guy on those tv ads who tries to act trendy and explain new-fangled tech to the audience, before some savvy young punk comes and exposes him for the out of touch bloviater (God I love that word – what do you mean it’s not a word spellcheck? Go read a frigging dictionary you smartarse) he is. Then he usually explodes or gets batted away. That’s exactly how I feel in today’s world.
Can you make me a cup of cocoa and fetch my slippers?
So there you go. SEO. Apparently, sometimes the articles they pen are just made up stuff to attract attention, but you know, that’s a trade secret, so mum’s the word. Actually it sounds a lot like creating fake news, which is basically what the profession of journalism has become now. However, that’s a tale for another day, the list of jobs that have or are becoming obsolete.
Fergisms 