5 Reasons Why Google Likes SEOs

Search engine optimizers get a lot of flak from various people claiming that we are ruining the web by filling it with spam. We are somehow enemy #1 of the web and of search engines alike. I, of course, have a different perspective. I believe that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the other search engines actually LIKE and I daresay NEED SEOs.

Sure, some optimization experts use their skills to obtain rankings for sites that are largely useless to visitors, but the majority of professional SEOs are actually doing much of the legwork for making search engine results better. Some examples of what we SEOs do include:

1. Keeping tabs on search engine rankings like hawks. When something is amiss, we report it to the search engines who in turn tweak their algorithms to perform better. This is a never-ending process with each step resulting in an improved search experience. Sure, sometimes the search engines are behind the curve, but they always catch up in large part because of the feedback from leading search engine optimization experts.
2. Expending a lot of effort to cleaning up websites by providing meaningful content elements such as titles, headings, body copy. Sure we're paid for our efforts, but that doesn't make the effort less valuable to search engines and the public at large. Everyone has bills to pay.
3. Evangelizing web design and web development best practices to a much larger number of people than the search engines could reach on their own. And it costs them nothing.
4. Establishing relevant connections between related content that would otherwise not be made. This makes it easier for search engines to present a set of results that should appeal to users. Sometimes these connections are established with something as simple as a link while other times more advanced techniques are used to build a living, breathing community of sites.
5. Making a search engine successful by being impressed with it's features and accuracy. In the search engine world, SEOs are the early adopters that collectively declare which search engines are worthy of attention. Can anyone honestly tell me that Ask.com, which has been struggling to build an audience, wouldn't love to have SEOs proclaim how superior it is?

So there you have it. Five reasons why search engines actually like SEOs. Do you have any more you think are worth adding to the list?