This caught my eye. A global web design company in a city near me has advertised a job opening for a Search Engine Optimization Engineer. The requirements are listed for the position. Of the 15 expected duties and responsiblities listed, the third one is this:
Consult with clients on website usability, to improve the end-users’ experience, and conversion rates to true customers of the client.
I was surprised at the request for knowledge of website usability. The other duties were typical for an SEO. I know a great many SEO’s and SEO companies and only a handful of the better ones even acknowledge the need for website usability for their SEO clients.
Some outsource, some do it in-house. Many of them perform user interface usability and stop there, as if this is enough. I don’t know any who offer user testing, either remotely or in labs (they may exist, but I can’t think of any SEO that offers this.)
Do they offer performance testing, before and after design quantitive testing, or automated performance testing of Internet applications for their clients? How about task analysis, user persona development, or cutting edge user centered design practices in persuasion, emotional and information design?
Where are accessibility and mobile testing offered, or does this not count in search engine marketing services? And if not, why? A lot of people use handheld devices to search for things and audio is used in ways other than assisting those with handicaps.
I doubt the company advertising this job even understands their item number 3. The usability part of the job is a position by itself, if they want it done properly.
All that aside, the union of search engine optimization and marketing with usability is just beginning to be accepted in some companies or discussed in the same sentences. Usability and SEO have been perceived as opposites that can’t live in the same house.
That thinking could leave you without a job or remove your company from the competition.
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I agree that usability is a full time job in itself, but it’s nice to see the worlds of seo/m and usuability moving towards each other. They never really needed to be opposed.
I think for quite some time seo has been moving away from formulas and algorithm manipulation towards a more holistic approach that brings it closer to offline marketing, networking, and yes usuability.
Sounds like people are finally waking up and smelling the coffee. You’ve preached for years that seo is only one side of the equation and those that get it convert their traffic and others just get traffic. I don’t know any of my clients that only want traffic or rankings. They may say that they want rankings for vanity or some misperceived notion that rankings gets them business but as I tell them, “Being number 1 in Google is useless if people hit the back button when they get to your site”. So keep on preachin’ sister.
“So keep on preachin’ sister.”
LOL
This made my day! Thanks
Interesting! We’re advertising for Search folks (of course
you know this), and this is something we are asking interviewees.
All part of Persusion in the end.
Have I told you, I love Persuasion, and how it really does go hand in hand with Search?
I have come accross employment opportunities as well requesting both skills. It seem like many of the internet-based jobs I come accross are multi-skill type jobs with some requiring programming knowledge as well.