When meeting new people I’m generally asked what I do for a living and I still find it very hard to explain after all these years. Firstly, I need to take into consideration who I’m talking to; how old they are, whether they’re tech savvy and finally whether they would have the slightest interest in knowing more about SEO. All within the space of half a second whilst I dither on my answer.
I may say ‘I’m an SEO’, or ‘I work in search marketing’, but generally I find it helps to start at the beginning. I’ll start with asking if they know and use Google. This generally gets them semi-interested! I ask them what they use it for which is answered with ‘To find things’. I asked what the last thing they searched for was and whether they clicked on the first result. I then explain that I am the guy who gets people to that #1 position on Google. I go further to explain about sponsored links/Adwords and how much people pay to be there compared to the ‘free’ organic results. Depending on who I’m talking to this conversation may end in ‘Wow! I had no idea search engine optimisation was such a huge industry!’ or ‘Hmm, ok… I still dont get it!’.
Either way, I love the open nature of the SEO community and the forever developing field. The role of the SEO has changed over the years and its a hell of a ride 
