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I recently jumped on Steve Wiideman about his name for SEO Standards. He came to my attention because I occasionally search on the term “SEO standards”. Of all the buzz expressions used by our industry, this one seems to me (along with “best practices”) to do us the most collective harm in an unintended way.

We are an industry without standards, as has oft been noted. It SHOULD — in my opinion — come as a surprise, therefore, that people mention standards. It’s okay for people like Wiideman to open a discussion about standards, even to propose standards. But is it okay for companies selling SEO, eCommerce, Web design, and search reputation management services to say they are complying with industry standards (or to suggest as much through similar if less specific language)?

To be honest, while writing this article I attempted to see what Visible Technologies says about standards with respect to our SEO and reputation management services. Some older content seems to have said something about (implied) internal standards but in one of our recent Web content consolidations that Web document was deleted.

There is a press release from last year about Visible joining the Online Reputation Management Association and working with them to establish professional standards. I don’t know what the current status of our involvement with ORMA is — I know that some of our staff have been working with the organization over the past few months.

Standards are important to me for quite a few reasons. I feel that standards confer a certain amount of accountability upon an industry or trade group. But too often I think people confuse standards with certifications and it needs to be said (perhaps more than once) that you can have standards without certifications but you cannot have credible certifications without standards.

Standards, of course, can be either industry-wide, group-wide, or singular. That is, you as a consultant or a service providing company can set your own standards. Publishing a personal or company standard helps set client expectations. I know from personal experience that client expectations can be fuzzy at best and specifically wrong at worst.

There have been a few attempts in the past to create some standards. For example, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) mentions a Metrics and Standards Task Force that appears to have no current members. Their first two initiatives were, perhaps, overreaching. The organization’s FAQ page even goes so far as to say: “SEMPO is not a standards body or a policing organization. Membership in or involvement with SEMPO is not a guarantee of a particular firm’s capabilities, nor does it signify industry approval or disapproval of their practices.”

Disavowing involvement with standards while proposing them is not, in my opinion, an optimal way to engage in the discussion. I think that politics (fear) prevented SEMPO from following the path it should have taken. It doesn’t have to become the SEO police force — it SHOULD be proposing standards for discussion and adoption.

We have the freedom to formally or informally adopt and support standards. I think the informal approach may be so low-key that few people will follow it — but a formal approach would demand much more time and effort than I can commit to (and SEMPO obviously failed to make it happen). So let’s try the informal approach.

The Informalist SEO Standard

Therefore, I offer the following informal standards for discussion. You can informally adopt them by publishing a Statement of Standards on your Website. But before you jump aboard the standards bandwagon (or try to run it off the road), make sure you really understand what standards mean and can do for our industry.

• Professional Services Website – An SEO firm or consultant should publish a Website that at the very least explains who the firm or consultant is, where they do business, how to contact them, and what services they offer.
• Statement of Standards – An SEO firm or consultant should publish a Statement of Standards on their Website to convey to their peers, customers, and industry observers the desire to establish, maintain, and honor a minimum professional level of accountability and performance. In the absence of an industry standard, a self-published Statement of Standards provides guidance on what others can expect.
• Professional Lexicon – An SEO firm or consultant should publish on their Website a concise glossary of SEO-related terms they use in their communications with clients and peers. This concise glossary of terms should acknowledge in a disclaimer that other terminology or alternative usage may be found throughout the industry.
• Professional Credit Courtesy – An SEO firm or consultant who rewrites, annotates, analyzes, or otherwise extensively uses the work of another SEO firm or consultant to represent their methods or ideas should acknowledge the direct and indirect significant contributions made by original authors and sources.
• Guarantees and Limitations of Performance – An SEO firm or consultant should publish a statement in clear language explaining or disclaiming any and all guarantees and limitations of performance. I don’t mean you should make promises (or decline to make promises). I mean you should make it clear that you do or do not make promises, commitments, and/or guarantees of performance. Don’t leave to everyone else to figure out whether you do (or do not).
• Statement of Unacceptable Practices – An SEO firm or consultant should publish a statement on their Website indicating what practices they will not use on behalf of clients. I would avoid use of subjective and provocative language like “black hat”, “white hat”, “ethical”, and “unethical”. Just say what you will NOT do.
• Statement of Work Practices – An SEO firm or consultant should use clear and concise language (including references to their Professional Lexicon where necessary) to explain specific work practices they employ in their work, in the event that they publish details about specific practices.
• List of Recommended Resources – An SEO firm or consultant should publish a list of resources (books, Websites, conferences, workshops, classes, etc.) they recommend to people for further study in the field of search engine optimization. This list should be disclaimed in some way to show that it is neither complete nor authoritative.
• Acknowledgement of Diversity of Opinion – An SEO firm or consultant should include a statement on their Website and in all work-related proposals that much of the work performed as “search engine optimization” is offered amid a diversity of opinion regarding the best practices, best resources, and best methods.

This is a pretty short list for several reasons. First, I think people need to see that creating and complying with standards is not the hypertensive organizational nightmare it has sometimes been made out to be.

Second, I think we can easily recognize the fact that most reputable SEO firms and consultants already do many of these things. By getting everyone to agree that we’re already following some “standard practices” (for the most part), we can move the conversation forward.

Third, I feel it’s important to illustrate that standards don’t recommend specific training programs. There will hopefully come a time when we can look at SEO training programs and see which ones offer the best, most well-rounded opportunities for acquiring or advancing search optimization skill and knowledge.

We can easily suggest standards for training classes, such as providing concise guidelines what to expect (nearly every training program I have looked at does this), providing verifiable background information on trainers (many but not all programs I have looked at do this), and covering a minimum of topics that are generally agreed upon as important for basic search engine optimization (keyword research, content creation, link building, analytics and analysis).

But suggesting a standard is easier than persuading people to adopt it. Some of the most ardent opponents of creating SEO standards have helped to set the tacit standards that I am documenting in this proposal.

If you want to help support this initiative, there are several things you can do:

1. Tweet, Sphinn, Stumble, and otherwise blog about or link to this article (using redirects and nofollows is okay with me)
2. Adopt the term “Informalist SEO Standard” and use it in your advocacy
3. Publish a Statement of Standards on your Website and make reference to the Informalist SEO Standard. You can say something like, “This Statement of Standards was modeled upon the Informalist SEO Standard proposed by Michael Martinez on Best SEO Blog.”
4. Write a response offering your thoughtful rebuttal on your own blog. At the very least, keep the conversation going.
5. Mention the Informalist SEO Standard at conferences and workshops. Don’t assume people know about it. TELL them about it.
6. Volunteer if you have the time and the passion. You can try to work through SEMPO or just go straight to the International Standards Organization or American National Standards Institute to study their recommendations for developing or proposing new standards.

Creating standards is a long, long process. It won’t happen overnight. There is way too much fear in our industry. I think that fear undermines people’s professional development. Some people would argue they aren’t so much afraid as apathetic — they just don’t care about standards.

But if that’s the case, then are these really the people upon whom you want part of your professional credibility to rest?

We’ll always be viewed with some suspicion and disbelief, criticized, and otherwise taken to task by people who don’t believe in search engine optimization. But we can weaken their arguments against our work by showing everyone that we can come together to create and maintain at least a minimal set of professional standards.

Written by Michael Martinez