Specialisation and the Web

Over the last few years Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has established itself as a stand-alone area in terms of website creation and management.
Since the dawn of the internet the web-world has been split into two distinct groups, Designers and Developers, the time has come to add SEO as a third.

Search Engine Optimisation has grown to the point that a large number of companies offer this as their only service, and many agencies have opened up departments to handle this ever changing process. Traditionally it used to be the responsibility of front-end web designers (and in terms of creating the foundations it still does), but it now seems that those within the web industry are increasingly having to specialise in certain areas.

This should not come as a surprise, it has already happened in the 3D industry. Initially a 3D artist covered every aspect, but now companies are employing specialists from ‘modelling experts’ to ‘lighting specialists’ and everything in-between.

For a long time now the web-world has been split into ‘frontend designers’ and ‘backend developers’, now you can add ‘SEO specialists’ to the mix - what next?

How about specialists in web-effects? With the emergence of JavaScript libraries jQuery and MooTools providing new possibilities in design (see my sliding navigation bar above) this could potentially develop into a specialist area.

Flash and Silverlight technologies are other sectors that could break away from being the responsibility of designers and become a ‘stand-alone’ category.

Personally I am excited about change and anything that helps the internet evolve. For my own clients I specialise in the project management frontend web-work, and I have some excellent developers I partner with to create the backend applications along with the SEO.

However it is with a touch of sadness that I can see these three core groups breaking down further over time and people’s individual roles becoming narrower with fewer opportunities to spread their expertise right across the board - just like the 3D industry today.