Practical eCommerce have produced the results of their SEO Survey.
Aside from the fact that they made no mention of how many people took part, let’s consider the highlights of each question and answer combination:
More than 95% of respondents though that SEO is important for their business.
Nearly all respondents claim to have a fair or good understanding of how SEO works, and 83% of them think that their website is optimised.
However, all opinions are built on the assumption that the respondent really does understand how SEO works. If you’ve spent any time at all on the various SEO forums, groups and mailing lists, you’ll already appreciate the difference between ‘understanding‘ and ‘thinking you understand‘.
Illusory superiority, as defined by Wikipedia, “causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits.“
For example, as proven by extensive research, most people with below-average intelligence overestimate their intelligence.
And according to the Wikipedia entry:
A survey of faculty at the University of Nebraska found that 68% rated themselves in the top 25% for teaching ability.
A similar survey revealed that 87% of MBA students at Stanford University rated their academic performance as above the median.
And a survey of students in Sweden and the United States asked them to compare their driving safety to the other people in the experiment. 88% of the US group and 77% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%.
Enough said.
