Let me start with the bottom line (making it the top line!): Your IT guy is not an SEO guy or a web guy. He’s an IT guy. So get him away from your website projects.

Having consulted with a number of companies that rely on their IT guy to lead the way with their Internet presence, I’ve come to realize that in the vast majority of cases, they should be kept far away from a small businesses’ website and Internet marketing.

The Problem

The problem is that the vast majority of IT guys are not web guys or SEO guys. So this is my warning to all of the businesses out there that rely on their IT person to make their web marketing decisions for them (having a website IS web marketing by default) – are you sure you should be putting your company’s reputation on the line for someone who sets up servers, fixes your computer, helps you with your email, and handles related matters?

My Doctor Analogy

An IT guy is not an SEO or a web guy, he’s an IT guy. These are completely different specialties the same way that asking an eye doctor to check your teeth doesn’t really make sense. They are similar professions in that they both work on the human body but they have different focal areas. Your eye doctor can recommend a good dentist and vice versa but that’s about it. You’re IT could recommend and help you choose an SEO company or a web guy but it ends there. IT people are not trained to be web designers or Internet marketers. The ones that try to do it all typically lack the integrity to tell you that they are not qualified to do the job, or they recognize that you’re small company and don’t have the website investment funds to hire someone else (a huge mistake in my opinion).

What is IT?

In the broadest sense of the term, IT refers to information technology which encompasses anything related to computers and websites. In a practical sense, IT guys are the people that companies rely on for server installation, network administration, computer software and hardware issues, backup and storage solutions, and related matters. When companies are looking to hire IT guys they may expect them to be well versed in web promotion but that’s a mistake.

What is a Web Guy?

Generally speaking, a web design company designs, builds, and programs a website.

What is an SEO Guy?

Someone who promotes your website, especially through the search engines, and looks at the short and long-term options to generate target market leads through the site and overall Internet presence.

How to Mix IT, SEO and Web Design

The best case scenario is to have a great web designer who is also an experienced SEO with a track record of success. This is a rare combination. If your company already has an IT guy, you may want to let him find an SEO company for you. Chances are your website needs a re-design so don’t hire an SEO company that doesn’t produce persuasive web design work.

Do not hire a web design company and then try to sprinkle on SEO when you are about to launch the site. SEO does not work that way.  The best case scenario is to hire an SEO web designer and let them help you strategize your way to online profit.

That said, I’ll break down three areas worthy of a definition. Before the SEO people and web design people blast these definitions, I ask you, the reader, to keep in mind that they are pretty broad. But you get the idea.

Web Designer

First, there was the web designer! A web designer’s role is typically to design a website graphically, cut up the design and insert it into a template format using HTML and CSS. They may add programming to a site but anything significant is typically performed by a website developer with specialized training in programming. Programs that web designers often use include Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and direct hard-coding programs as simple as notepad. Either way, most web designers suck because basic web design is fairly easy to learn and “anyone can do it” but anything substantial requires real commitment and most people simply aren’t that committed. Although the time is coming for companies to hire the real deal if they want to make money as the Internet becomes much more competitive.

SEO

Then the search engine optimization (SEO) people came along. Early on they learned to register with search engines, use a meta-tag generator (and “just this code to your website and it will work”) and of course, buy links for people and wait for website rankings to rise. As SEO become increasingly complex, important, and difficult to implement properly, we entered the era of the SEO web designer.

SEO Web Designer

Finally, SEO web designers entered our lives. Since SEO cannot be taught in school, they consisted mainly of forward thinking web designers (and in fact came from many areas of Internet-related professions, making the concept of what it means to be an “SEO” a somewhat difficult one to define).

The SEO web designer is the one you want. You no longer want someone who just knows about design but rather the person who reads the research and figures out what makes people find your site and buy from your company, based on the design. Sadly, to this day, there are actually web designers who have never heard of SEO or don’t know the first thing about the topic and still expect to make a living.

Next, the social media people wandered in. But that’s a whole other story.