• Client:
  ‘I want to be number 1 in Google.’
• Me:
  Sigh. ‘Everyone does. Did you have any keywords in mind?’
• Client:
  ‘I was thinking of all these words.’ (Client hands me a list of words including “sex”, “poker”, “loans” and so on.)
• Me:
  ‘Those have nothing to do with your business.’
• Client:
  ‘Yes, but lots of people search for them.’
• Me (thinks):
  ‘Did I travel back in time to 1996? Am I suddenly the Marty McFly of SEO? I wonder why DeLorean cars weren’t more popular …’
• Client:
  ‘Dave?’
• Me:
  ‘Sorry. Ok, we need to talk. Let me explain how search and online marketing actually work …’

It is amazing how many people hire online marketers without the faintest idea of what online marketers actually do. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is fairly simple – SEOs will try and improve your site’s performance, usually by trying to leverage their knowledge of how search engines work and tricks they can use to make sites seem more relevant than they actually are to specific keywords.

Marketing online, though, need not have anything to do with search engines. Search engines are irrelevant – good positions and traffic are a by-product of effective online marketing.

Unfortunately, after educating a client on what online marketing is, they usually assume that if they pay you a few hundred pounds, you can make their site compete with the very best out there.

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