Is SEO Dead?
You probably have read about SEO being pronounced dead from time to time, especially after Google dances to rebuild its ranking algorithm or right after a controversial tweet from Matt Cutts. Sorry to disappoint but my days as a search engine optimizer are far from over.
I believe SEO lives on; it has grown up and is constantly evolving. It has in fact continued to grow every year, but as websites began to improve and advance so did the indexing, crawling and ranking metrics of most search engines. SEO techniques continue to adapt to these critical changes. With innovations like social media, Web 2.0, infographics, looking at these trends SEO is expected to grow even bigger in future.
SEO Makes Money
As long as the world lives and breathes online, as long as good rankings mean good business, we cannot ignore the importance of SEO.
SEO will continue to be an important tool used by businesses to compete against each other in the online world.
Below is an infographic that explains the potential of SEO and how consumers use the internet. The data are taken from different researches made by: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), International Data Corporation (IDC), Office for National Statistics (ONS), Forrester Research, Optify.net, Statcounter.com and SearchEngineJournal.com.
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SEO 1.0 to SEO 2.0
Undeniably, the introduction of penguin and panda had caused a major impact and has legitimized SEO practices. Content is still King, YES. “So I’ll just make sure I’ll update my website and blog regularly with new content, easy peasy!”
If only it were that simple.
Meaty Content
A fresh content with poor substance and quality can do more harm than good. Low quality content is getting wiped out by Google and we must take that warning seriously. Content that does not have sufficient meat to feed the information-hungry visitor is no longer recognized by the search engines as valuable. Always remember that visitors arrived at your website because they believe you can provide answers or alternative solution to their problems. Take advantage of that opportunity by pointing them to the right content or direction.
Be Social. Almighty Google is watching
It would also be good to note that Google checks whether or not your website is the only place online where your brand or keywords maintain a responsible presence.
This is where social media enters the picture. As the integration of social media and search continue at a rapid pace, your website should not only be search-engine searchable but also “socially-searchable”. Now is the best time to BE SOCIAL. Start to think about social media more like search engines because SEO is not just about getting traffic from search engine, but also means getting traffic from various web pages such as simple tweets and re-tweets. To continue pushing your rankings up, your back link profile will need to reflect a strong online social media presence.
Quality over Quantity
The most common mistake SEO newbies make is emphasizing quantity over quality.
Link building is an important aspect in SEO and it’s safe to say that backlinks are a website’s lifeblood. Not all backlinks though are equal and in some cases certain types of backlinks can be harmful to a website’s ranking. Another mistake is the use of automated link building software, sure they make work easier but that’s precisely the reason why not to use them. Nowadays, quality and relevant backlinks are very hard to get but it is always worth the effort. If you think about it, achieving quality links makes it double-hard for competitors to outrank you, which to me is a good thing.
Hi, my name is “Irrelevant”.
Having irrelevant links is an acceptable part of a natural linking process. These types of links still pass link juice. However, if 80% of your links are from irrelevant and to some extent fake websites, you will have a serious problem. In the time of SEO 1.0, you need tens or hundreds of links to be competitive, now the new Golden Rule is: A teaspoonful of high quality backlinks is stronger than a cup of low quality links.
So folks, there you go. SEO is alive – is evolving, and so must we. What worked once may not work now. As SEOs we must be agile. Let’s raise the bar and move on from the old link building approaches and continue to stay ahead of the curve on all the new SEO trends.
Trust me, SEO is here to stay.
High Five!
