Can SEO be trademarked?

Hi there,

I just finished reading an interesting article about a guy who is attempting to trademark the term "SEO" in the U.S. Mind you, this isn't a new story. In fact it's been going on since April, 2008. He's got some people fighting the idea, so we'll have to wait and see what happens, but it got me to thinking.

SEO, as you likely already know stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it's the techniques used to get the search engine "spiders" to find your site and rank it high. It seems everyone is using SEO to boost their rankings and, of course, lots of folks are making some money selling information on how to do it.

I try to use SEO techniques in my writing because usually that's what my clients want. Often, individual clients will have different ideas on what works and what doesn't, so it gets a little tricky. The one thing you don't want to do is write content that is so filled up with keywords (the words and phrases people search for your product with) that it doesn't read easily. You can usually spot a rookie SEO writer a mile away because the content just doesn't sound the way people talk.

A lot of writers I know tend to believe that quality content is the most important thing on your website, not just the placement of certain keywords. I tend to agree with that view point. Still, I just don't know what I think about someone getting a trademark on the acronym SEO. It seems kind of like trademarking the word "blog" or "article" or "content" doesn't it? What do you think? Is SEO part of the common freelancing language or should someone be able to trademark it and prevent other people from using it? Do you use SEO techniques? What ranks higher on your list: keywords or content?

Let me know what you think! Is SEO here to stay? Or does it fit into that category of "as soon as I figured out all the answers, someone changed all the questions?"

Til next time,
Teresa