Explaining to people what I do is difficult at times. I do SEO for Spigot Inc. in Kansas City.

What is SEO? Well, uh, it is what it is. SEO is search engine optimization. But really it’s a lot more than that. The goal isn’t just to rank highly on Google, it’s to be well-represented across the internet. Ranking highly on search engines is important, but its a result of being represented in some key places around the web.

SEO is like doing public relations entirely on the internet. Whatever it is you’re trying to make visible needs to have a presence around the web. Does it have a Facebook page, a Twitter, a Google Plus page, etc? The more places your brand is represented the better. Each place is an opportunity to catch someone’s eye who may share your content to their network.

Public Relations Society of America calls PR “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

This is what I do, entirely online. SEO isn’t as much about doing some sort of Google magic as people might think. It’s about making it easy for people to find and interact with a brand online.