The IAWSEO Manifesto
Thanks for choosing to read the IAWSEO Manifesto!
Here’s the thing:
I do SEO for fun most of the time.
On occasion I do it for profit, too, and I always optimize my clients’ content for search engines.
Seriously, I do.
After all, search engines are a handy tool, aren’t they?
But search engines and SEO are not the reason for my website(s) to exist – and I will never believe that’s the reason any of my clients’ websites exist for either.
This Manifesto summarizes the key philosophical ideas behind the IAWSEO blog and my way of looking at SEO in the overall landscape of Digital Marketing.
The fundamental principle
A website is a standalone project of its own and its webmaster has a right to make choices based on their own view of online relationships and web development practices.
The IAWSEO Manifesto
☑ We are webmasters, bloggers, marketers.
We do what we do because we love the projects we work on. ☑
☑ We recognize the great importance of search engines in today’s Web environment, much like directories used to be when it all started in (YEAR).
BUT we choose to NOT make search engines the whole of our marketing practice. ☑
☑ We choose to put our projects and our audience first, and to grow our websites for us and them, not search engines.
We don’t swear by search engine guidelines, ever. Search engine guidelines are NOT the law. ☑
☑ We do SEO, but we recognize that a website has value regardless of its presence in search engine indexes.
We won’t accept accusations of being “bad webmasters” or “bad people” just because one or more search engines decided our websites may be spammy to an extent according to their vision of what spam is. ☑
☑ We adopt critical thinking in all things digital marketing.
We don’t follow fads and FUDs. ☑
☑ We swear by the most complete independence of webmasters, bloggers and marketers from search engines.
We simply don’t put search engines first. ☑
Signed:
Luana Spinetti
and any like-minded “IAWSEO” webmaster, blogger and marketer out there