Thread by @carlhendy

Despite the weekly and sometimes heated discussions, SEO has come a long way in the last few years, for the better. It's not perfect but no industry is.

A few rambling thoughts/observations.

#SEO

Google has given us access to more Googlers, a much improved Google Search Console and greater actionable guides and comms. Credit to @JohnMu, @g33konaut, @danielwaisberg and team.

The role diversity within SEO has expanded. For most large websites there is no longer just one SEO. There will be SEOs each with specialist skills or defined roles. This creates job opportunity and variety.

Recruitment for SEO has never been more in demand. There are currently ~80k roles in the US alone for [SEO] on LinkedIn. There is a wide variety of agency, in-house or plenty of SEO work for independent consultants.

Some progress has been made in terms of diversity within in the industry thanks to initiatives as @techseowomen and the efforts from @kelvinnewman @brightonseo team. There is still improvement to be made as recently highlighted by @LidiaInfanteM 's recent findings.

Improved prioritisation of SEO (yeah it's still low) is happening and the channel is taken more seriously. Budgets globally continue to increase as identified within the State of Search SEO report by @sejournal. Still some catching up with other marketing channel spend to do.

CMS providers as @Shopify, @Wix and @BigCommerce continue to improve SEO performance whilst hiring some of the best SEOs around. Unfortunately some of the larger enterprise platforms still live in the dark ages.

Cross team collaboration with SEOs happens now. SEO is no longer a lone wolf activity within the business and more businesses are aware of the value. SEOs will often sit across all digital channels.

SEOs are building their own tech to help solve marketing problems. Examples of this would be @AlsoAsked, @SearchPilot and @keywordinsights. Would be rude not to mention @Reddico's SERP speed.

Technology providers as @semrush, @sistrix, @sitebulb and @screamingfrog continue to innovate at a fast pace to ensure SEOs have the right data and toolset to do their jobs successfully.

It's early days out of the pandemic but events are back up and running globally. SEO events are no longer just London centric, and are created specifically to help encourage greater diversity and first-time speakers. Shout out to @Kirsty_Hulse's confidence training.

Many SEOs will contribute and add value to wider marketing discussions on regular basis for example @danbarker's and @JamesGurd @ecomchat on Mondays or the weekly #SemrushChat.

SEOs have launched successful newsletters from the likes of @aleyda, @tomcritchlow, @dannydenhard and @SaijoGeorge, which provides insights and news weekly.

There are still issues to be addressed within the #SEO industry and there needs to be more open discussions but for the most part the industry is great and look out for each other. Apologies for typos, it's late.