I'm not an 'SEO-specialist' anymore

Because I don't know about you, but I don't use Google that much anymore. Literally. It's down 95% or so.

Chat bots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Mistral (which is the one I use) have fundamentally changed the way I find my information. And in the meantime, the Google SERP has become an annoying enshittificated dirty mess, littered with distractions. Being able to just ask a question (instead of translating it to a keyword), and then getting a decent answer without the annoying stuff is a like breath of fresh air. It's not even Goog’ enough; it's a mess.

Maybe I'm over-sensitive to this type of stuff and this way of thinking is way too early. But when talking to other search folks with a few years under their belts, they all say the same: they converse with a Chatbot, and for local and navigational stuff, they use Google. But not every single time: only when needed.

I think we're just the first ones to change our ways. And I also think that the rationale behind it is this: we're all basically following the path of least resistance: Question > Answer. That is what we want.

What we don't want, is: A lot of ads between organic results > Needing to visit several websites that don't (fully) provide the answer I need > Oh, and these websites are filled with distractions and all work differently > Oh, I need to get back and need to translate my search query into another one, because then maybe I get better results. Sigh.

Pandora's box has opened, and there is no going back. This WILL become the new paradigm. Because people are opportunistic; because people follow the path of least resistance. As soon as they see it for what it is. It's just a matter of time.

Come on folks, it's been 25 years since search engines became the dominant way to find the stuff we search for.

The search engines themselves have evolved. My favorite example is Google Discover: the biggest traffic driver almost the entire SEO-world sleeps on. It delivers a lot of clicks, but it's a personalized agent that actively gives you suggestions (see what I did there? I called it an "agent" …). It keeps on growing too.

And what about the places we all hang out? Walled or semi-walled or even open communities like SEObrein, Women in Tech SEO, and The SEO Community, chats like Slack, Signal or more open global networks like LinkedIn, Youtube, BlueSky … that is where we talk to each other, and give each other tips about new SEO insights, courses, and tools for example.

Do these places directly send clicks? Meh. Do they help you in getting your message across? Are there besides these 3 SEO communities we all know many, many more in other markets? For sure!

When I hear thought leaders speaking about this subject, they all say basically the same: things have changed, in a big way.

What we as search marketeers should do, is live and breathe that it's not about keywords, pagerank, and meta tags anymore. We need to forget about being found. Most searches in classic search engines nowadays are navigational anyway (and I believe that that percentage will only go up). Instead, we should focus on being the one people search for.

A strong brand in search technically means that your brand name is mentioned alongside the things your brand targets: the products you sell, the services you offer, the problems you solve. And then in those sources (see what I did there? I called it a ‘source’ …) where your target audience gathers, talks, acts.

There are several ways to achieve this of course. They usually involve things like audience research, good UX, online PR, consistently taking care of your entities, et cetera.

But aren't these also means to an end? Yes, of course! We do these things because that is what we need to do to get the results our clients need and pay us for to deliver: conversions, signups, engaged visitors, whatever the goals are.

So the means have changed, and the platforms have diversified, but what remains is what we are hired to achieve: making sure our clients reach their organizational goals by sending visitors their way, either paid or non-paid (that distinction is arbitrary anyway. SEO costs money too).

There are many folks who are thinking about this: how should we call SEO going forward? There are proposals, like GEO and AEO as mentioned. There are also people who prefer to keep using SEO, mostly because GEO and AEO are just other names for basically the same thing.

I agree with them. For these reasons:

I do feel the urge to come up with a new name for the profession though. Because of both the fundamental technical changes and the diversified landscape. But it's not these acronyms.

So how to name and define something that is increasingly diverse, and is changing every day while we stand by and watch? Well, by looking at what all the parts in it have in common of course!

Long story short: we need to ditch the means, and focus on the goal. That's the essence. Being found. In a diverse landscape, but usually online, actively through search, passively through agents, using a multitude of means to get the results our clients want.

I know, it's easy to say: "oh, that guy is trying to be famous because he tries to coin a name that we'll all use". To be honest, I said the same thing in the beginning when people started using the acronyms like GEO and AEO (apologies).

But it's not about that.

What it is about, is that I feel, just like many of you do, that things are changing quite fundamentally, that our profession is undervalued (I haven't even addressed that in this article, but yeah, there it is), and that we need a new, sexier name for our profession. One that does justice to what we do, but also one that reflects the fact that we have come out of the basement, are not nerds anymore, and provide a lot of value. Plus, I don't like these acronyms.

So I think that ‘Findability architect and engineer’ in my case is quite good actually.

What’s your take?