SEO for Parents: What Does Daddy Do?
Dad and Baby by PedroCancion
Last time I wrote about SEO and parenting I stressed that you need to be proud of what you do to be able to talk with your kids about it. That’s not just about SEO.
You need to have real reasons to work beyond money and a work ethos beyond just “working hard”.
It’s what you do and how you do it. Even if you are proud and you know how you do it most people, even other grown ups don’t.
A few years ago people would ask whether you work for Google when you said search engine optimization.
These days many will rather assume you are one of the dark alley magicians who “manipulate Google search results”.
Working at the computer all day, especially at home is both tough on kids and yourself. You’re there but you can’t play with them. You work but it appears as if you are just sitting around all day.
While SEO is difficult to explain to grown ups, it’s even more difficult to grasp for your children.
I’ve found last time the seemingly perfect solution: I help people to find things on the Internet. Also I help other people to get found there.
Nonetheless yesterday my daughter came up to me and said: I know what you do! You help people find search engines! Probably because I just helped her to use Google.
I told her it was somewhat the other way around, more the likes of “I help people using search engines to find websites”. You get the point: It’s still too abstract.
All Done by jayceh
I doubt that kids can even distinguish between search engines and other websites. After all they are even right, almost every site has an internal search engine as well.
- So how do parents explain SEO to kids?
- What does daddy do all day?
- Is he he a crook like the bullies in school say?
(In brackets I inserted the translation into SEO terms for grown ups)
Let me give you a few examples how you can tell your kids what you do:
- I help parents to find the cheapest toys around so that they can buy more of them. (shopping search, ecommerce)
- I help people to find places to go on vacation so that they can play around on the beach. (travel SEO)
- I help parents to find stuff faster so that they have more time to play with their kids. (SEO, website speed, usability)
- I help people who sell ice cream to find the kids who want to have some. (local SEO)
- I help people who want to save the trees to tell more people that we have to save the trees. (non profit SEO)
You might also want to explain how you do it. These are examples you can use:
- I set up small signs everywhere that say go this way to find the cheapest toys. (link building)
- I write about the most beautiful beaches and show how you get there. (content creation)
- I show the toy stores and beaches on images and on maps so you get there faster. (image optimization and universal search)
- I tell the people who sell ice cream which flavor of ice cream the kids like best. (market and keyword research)
- I ask the people to help save trees with some money. I try to find the best words for that. (conversion rate optimization).
You see you can even explain to your kids what you do. There is nothing shady or inexplicable about SEO.
It’s just a matter of the words and examples you choose. Parents shouldn’t hide what they do. Even in some difficult to explain trades like ours.
Hello,
In my opinion SEO is an easy job to describe to childrens, Google being the entry door for everything they use on internet.
I work on business process modelization in industry and on SEO on my free time. My childrens understand better SEO :)
I’m a young father and my kid is 1 year now and after reading these information I think when he brew I need to make him understand all these stuffs. I agree that we need to make them understand what our business is and its future. That would help them to fix their prospects.
Lucky for me, my kids are computer-friendly teens and totally “get” what I do…not only do they understand, they think it’s “kewl”. However, I may use the helpful suggestions in your post to explain things to my parents :)
I get what you mean, I having problem explaining what I do with adults and extremely having problem explaining it to my kids. I just told them I work on computers, maybe when they get older I can explain it better to them and hope they understand.
Tell me about it guys I am happy that someone is blogging about how hard it is to explain seo to adults born in 50’s 60’s 70’s they just think you are bsing them and it is so simple. Millions if not billions of people are searching for things they need on search engines and that you need to rank for search engines. It seems so simple to us and so complex to them. Its weird…. I am hoping they will soon catch on.
I have 3 kids 1 teen and 2 little, the teen in love with computers i cant get her out but now after reading it all here, I think this is stage.
I have 2 kids, and they already teenager.. they really love playing computer games.. But I don’t have other choice but to jam with them, but not all the time. Thank you for the link! I am pretty sure this would help me a lot…
Yeah I’m sure parents must know this idea.
Ha cool post dude – I just wrote one the other day trying to explain to my daughter what I do by illustrating it with an interest of hers… kittens :P
Is very interesting write. I though understand English I write badly. Your blog has added in bookmarks, is very glad that has found your blog. I will learn English better to express the gratitude
I’ve had the same concerns with being a lawyer. Lots of people don’t like lawyers so I have to make sure I am doing the best possible job and contributing to society.