Ethical SEO Services
Framing is when you use language to set the agenda.
Framing is short for "frame of reference", meaning "a set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something will be approached, perceived, or understood".
This is a very important concept in marketing, and business in general. By using an appropriate frame of reference, you can manage how people perceive you.
Seo Is Spam?
For example, "SEO Is Spam" is a frame. It defines the terms of the debate ie. SEO is either spam or not spam. Would we frame the couriers this way? Couriers are spammers? Why do the terms "SEO" and "spam" necessarily go together?
They don't. That's a deliberate construct.
SEO is spam/not spam is an attempt to frame SEO as undesirable by associating SEO with a pre-existing pejorative term. That frame came from the search engines, and it has stuck with the industry since the days of Infoseek.
Some SEOs have contributed, too, of course, but it has served the search engines well. No matter what side of that debate SEOs take, they have already lost. They've been forced to argue within a negative framework.
Getting The Frame Wrong
My personal view if that if you start by framing your SEO service solely in terms of ethics, you're probably losing business.
It's a red-flag.
Potential clients would undoubtedly see such a frame in terms of "where there is smoke, there is fire". Would you trust a car dealer who, upon meeting you, launched into a long explanation of why car dealers have a bad reputation, but he's not like the other dealers, no sir? Why even bring it up? I'd think that he was trying too hard, and really all I'm interested in is buying a car.
Sell me on that instead.
It's the same with potential SEO customers. What are they really looking for? Once you've answered this question, then you can begin to work on your frame.
How To Construct Beneficial Frames
Politicians use frames all the time.
For example, Al Gore framed the environmental issue as “man made global warming.” Bush re-framed it as “climate change.” Those different frames imply different things. One implies "we can do something about an impending disaster by changing our habits", the other frames man in a passive role, because climate change is a natural occurrence.
Both those frames supported the underlying political message.
Same goes with business.
Marketers know that the way a statement is framed influences how customers respond to it. Tell a group of base jumpers that 1% of all base jumpers die horrible deaths, and you'll get few people signing up. However, tell them that 99% live, and it sounds a whole lot more appealing.
Web Communication Technologies and Internet-Related Social Issues - HSI 2003: Second International Conference on Human Society@Internet, Seoul, Korea, ... (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) Book (Springer) |