The worst part about being an SEO professional is the negative connotation that can come along with the label. The multitude of “undesirables” in the industry have burned so many website owners over the years, that it’s led many white-hat agencies to shift from identifying themselves as SEOs. These agencies (often hastily, and without a shift in strategy) rebrand themselves “inbound marketers.” But SEO and inbound marketing are not the same. Anyone who engages in only SEO but ignores other marketing strategies is not truly an inbound marketer.
And this shift has led to confusion among those seeking SEO and inbound marketing services. Many times, website owners think that because they engage in optimization, that they can cross “inbound marekting” off of their digital to do lists. And others hire inbound marketing agencies, assuming that optimization will be part of the strategy, only to find out six months later that there was no optimization taking place at all.
