The “Real” Devin Downey

If you notice the title tag on this page (if you are unaware of a title tag, it’s at the very top of your browser, the title tag on my homepage says “The ‘Real’ Devin Downey”) it is a strong example of the challenges of balancing SEO and art. If I wanted to have a shot at ranking for any search engine industry terms, I’d need to change the headline on this page to something like, “Devin Downey, Search Engine Marketer”, because on this blog content management system, my title on my page is automatically placed in the title tag of the code. Now if I was much smarter, like my co-worker Rob Garner (he is brilliant), I could probably change the code, but that’s just not me. I don’t find Content Management Systems intuitive, they drive me crazy. I just think of ideas and work with the people who can make them happen. Since no one is being employed to do the code on this site, we are stuck with a headline title tag that is designed to be the best balance between SEO and art that I can figure out - ranking for my own name yet a bit sarcastic per my personality.

Lately, all of our clients have been stressing balance. The firm I work for employs a report called an Obstacles Analysis Report (OAR short). We should rename it the Balance of Search Engine Optimization and Art Report (BS for short). Our clients instruct us that we dare not tell one of their artists that the design technique they are utilizing is killing their search engine presence and literally trashing million of dollars of search visibility. “How do we build a business case for SEO?”, the artists ask, hoping that we don’t have an answer. The answer is often stated by taking their paid search efforts and mutiplying by a factor of four or five. That number can be staggering. Unfortunately, they often still don’t grasp the concept. That’s ok. Their bosses soon will.