I know. I know. You have probably heard this question before, and nobody seems to have a definite answer to this question. But the funny thing is that nobody asks why this questions comes up so often when discussing search engine optimization. Search engine optimization has become one of the hottest field and a few SEOs are making crazy amount of money for offering their art to those who want to gain more visibility on the web. But the truth is, search engine optimization is a science period. Search engine optimization by definition is a process that you go through to optimize your pages for better visibility on search engines. A process in my mind refers to something that is more scientific.

So why SEO consultants want you to believe otherwise? The answer is simple. A scientific process can be done by anybody. Sure, it won’t be easy, but as long as you know the rules and follow the rules, you will be fine. An art however indicates that you may need some special talent to pull it off. There is no question that we have very good and very bad SEO professionals, but their level has nothing to do with their talent. Those who have simply worked hard on improving their SEO knowledge usually are more effective than SEOs who try to wing it. Search engine optimization is a science, and you can absolutely do it yourself. Anybody who is telling you otherwise is just plain wrong.

I have heard many consultants claiming that while SEO is based on science and algorithms, best professional SEOs are more artists than scientists. But is that really true? After all, a consultant will tell you everything you need to hear to give him/her the business or to continue getting those paychecks from you. So let’s bust some myths when it comes to SEO:

1. You can’t do SEO yourself: not necessarily true. Let’s not forget that search engine optimization is all about figuring out how Google, Yahoo, and other engines rank websites and trying to use such guidelines to design more SEO friendly websites.  Secondly, a major part of your SEO efforts is going to be developing valuable content to your users and keep the content coming to retain the visitors that you have attracted over the years. So you can certainly create content yourself, and it is also possible to do most things that SEOs might suggest by yourself. Keep that in mind though that while you can save money doing your SEO yourself, you will sacrifice your time and if you are better off focusing on your core competency, then outsourcing SEO is a good approach.

2. SEO at its best is an art: true and not true. I would not call innovation in SEO an art per se.  While thinking outside the box is not possible for everyone, it certainly doesn’t make SEO an art. Best SEOs are those who fully understand the guidelines and hints that they have gotten from their experience with search engines. What makes one SEO professional better than the other? A better understanding of algorithms could be one reason. It certainly gives you the possibility to come up with more ways to optimize a website but again that does not make you an artist, but a very good scientist at best.

While I do agree that some professional SEOs are exceptionally creative, in general the word “art” is an attempt to sell SEO to clients more than anything else. I personally would prefer to be called a good scientist than an artist, but that’s just me.