I think one of the hard things for many of us is that we know things like conversions are important and so work them on our own sites and might even help clients with it on their sites, but is it technically seo?

That’s really not what I do, although certainly my marketing helps a client’s SEO in a big way.

Anyway, I agree SEO does not = conversions. I have been roped into that before and in many cases have had success with bringing big amounts of traffic to someone without many conversions.

Sometimes the product just doesn’t sell, whether it is tangible or intangible, and in effect they need to make it work BEFORE engaging someone to help bring it to the attention of the world.

It’s hard isn’t it to identify where the boundaries are for an SEO? There are so many aspects we understand are necessary to the process, but how many of those are really the realm of SEOs?

I’m with you about offering my opinion to clients, even when it may fall outside of my responsibility. It feels like it would be wrong to hold back info that I think will help.

Is content quality and conversion process the responsibility of the SEO? Maybe not, but the SEO’s reputation will benefit by anything that improves the customer’s ROI during the relationship. I feel that it would be somewhat unethical to keep your mouth shut and take a customer’s money for pure SEO work when you know that they have bigger problems.

I have had sites that I did not do any SEO and so in turn spent alot of money trying to get people and lost over all due to target market and PPC cost.

Now I am doing SEO and really tending to the quality of the soil so to speak and starting to get some results which will turn into the flowers.

So I see as an essential part of my business

Rich