The Need For A New Term To Represent SEO and Other Online Marketing Processes

SEO perhaps is one of the most controversial fields mainly because of the connotations of its names. SEO professionals are always under the microscope of businesses and other professionals, and people find it risky to come into the profession of search engine optimization.

No matter how hard the SEO industry tries, the connotations of spammers and inauthentic people will always remain associated with the name ‘SEO’. People in the industry are trying to coin new terms that would help give a fresh image and look to the industry. Moreover, now SEO is not an isolated field, there are other areas overlapping with it, and the overlapping of which would increase with time.

Fields Overlapping:

In order to be a good social media marketer, a professional needs to have knowledge of website marketing, analytics, content, as well as the SEO practices. Similarly, in order to be a good SEO professional, the person needs to know about analytics, web marketing, social media and content development.

The Need For New Term:

All this overlapping of different field, their mingling into one another at a faster pace, and to do away with the bad connotations of SEO, the industry needs a new term. Such a term that can in itself explain all the processes associated with brand marketing online by SEO.

Shortcomings of ‘Internet Marketing’:

The term that is used synonymously with SEO or with other online marketing processes is ‘Internet Marketing’. Letting the combination of SEO, social media, and content marketing be represented by ‘internet marketing’ would be misleading, as the term ‘internet marketing’ has a great part of paid search associated with it. Therefore, ‘internet marketing’ is a term that cannot be used to explain an amalgamation of these processes.

Inbound Marketing:

Besides ‘internet marketing’ and ‘digital marketing’ that do not represent the overlapping fields fully, the term ‘ inbound marketing’ has greater potential of encompassing and explaining all these fields.

In simple words, the term ‘inbound marketing’ would mean the earning of attention of customers, rather than interrupting the customers by buying the attention. The term is new, but it has great potential of being used as a representative term, which would mainly be because of its principles.

Principles Behind Inbound Marketing:

The primary principles behind the ‘inbound marketing’ term are:

  • Earning the trust and business of visitors by using a combination of conversion optimization and content creation practices
  • The joint leveraging of search channels, blogs, social, referral links, PR, word-of-mouth, and email to promote the content of the website.
  • The using of analytical practices that are sophisticated, that can help in better understanding of the true worth of the content as well as the sources of visitors.

These principles are the corner stone of the prevalent online marketing processes, whether it be SEO services, content marketing, or social media. Therefore, the term ‘inbound marketing’ can best be used as a representative term.


In short, with all different fields of online marketing overlapping at an increasing pace, the need is to use a new term that is fresh, encompasses all the processes, and represents all the processes in a manner that has no negative connotations.