That’s why, in my experience, your colleagues remain the few. Even without the SEWatch piece, I don’t have to know about specific work you’ve done to draw that conclusion; the blog and your about page let me know you’re interested in putting strategy before tactics. And, at the SMB level, that remains sadly rare.

Anyway, we’re starting to face this same phenomenon recently at Future Now at some level. It turns out a lot of former SEO lemmings are moving to “Conversion Rate Marketing.” Oh, well… They’ve got a lot of catching up to do

Thanks for clarifying and for the link to that article… Interesting stuff.

As for Mike G.’s column, his “big picture” point is not at all off-target. But I disagree with the idea that it “changes everything.” The good SEOs have been doing all this “new” stuff for some time now. SEWatch interviewed me about it here:

What Does Universal Search Mean for SEM?

And I also wrote about Universal Search here on SBS.

I would still disagree with the idea that SEO should stand for Search Engine Optimism. That may apply to some of the hucksters, but not at all to the dozens of people I know via conferences, blogs, etc.

Did you really read the comments on my post? I admitted that “most” was a bit unfair (but ‘poorly worded’ is probably more accurate, thanks) and further explained my perspective.

I’d be curious to know what you think of Mike Grehan’s ClickZ column. Grehan’s much more of an SEO expert than I care to be, and his words are considerably harsher. Is he off-target as well?

(Nice blog, by the way… We mention it on our Blog Buzz podcast [WebmasterRadio.fm] on occasion.)

-Robert