One of the biggest problems with the SEO industry is that we spend too much time talking amongst ourselves and not enough educating others about what we do.

Unless you are selling tools or software, it’s unlikely that you run an SEO agency that needs to market to other SEO companies. Is hanging out on Inbound.org or other SEO forums really the best use of your time? I understand the need to stay current in the industry and hone new skills. Moz, Distilled and others put out interesting studies on occasion that every SEO should be reading and learning from. Self-learning and improving SEO skills are things that should be a priority for anybody in the industry.

But there are millions of businesses in the US alone that could benefit greatly right now from SEO. These are the people that we as SEOs need to focus on reaching.

Our industry has a reputation problem. We spend so much time arguing about gender distribution on SEO websites, writing about the color of Rand Fishkin’s shoes and his personal grooming habits and fighting each other for precious karma while thousands of people are reading misinformation telling them that SEO is dead and an industry full of scumbags.

There’s an opportunity to create real impact with engineers, business owners and marketing managers who don’t understand or believe in SEO. The Internet doesn’t need another post on how important social media is to SEO or ‘What X taught me about SEO.’ Imagine if all the creative energy spent trying to please the SEO echo chamber was put towards growing our businesses and our industry instead. Maybe people wouldn’t hate us so much.