The blogger bees have been buzzing about these sound bites lately. Like a lot of things buzz-worthy, it’s wise to look a little deeper into the issue, as rumor and generic common knowledge often are sorely misinformed. This little article should clear up a thing or two for you.
So, Is SEO dead?
No, SEO is absolutely and obviously not dead, not even close. There is a reason this buzz-topic has been whizzing around our heads so much, and it boils down to a simple lack of understanding – so let us enlighten.
SEO used to be a rather static ordeal; a site would realize its relevant keywords, the site lists these relevant keywords in their meta-data, Google sees these keywords, and when a Google user searches for these keywords, Google make a match between the search query and the particular website, and BAM, you have your search engine rankings. Of course, there’s more nuance to it than that, but in a simple explanation, that’s how it worked.
Since then, web marketers using black hat SEO would take advantage of weakness, oversights, or loopholes in this ranking system. For example, If Google ranked a site depending on a user’s search query and the match of keywords Google found in a particular website, web marketers would therefore stuff their sites with every single possibly related keyword they could fit on their server (a technique called keyword stuffing). This worked for a while and gave their site a bump in rankings, up until Google realized that the websites using these predatory black hat SEO techniques were gaining unfair search rankings, and ultimately delivering poorer information to the end user. Google doesn’t want that, because the quality of the content Google delivers to its users is the number one most important function keeping Google relevant.
Google constantly strives to evolve and fight back against scammers, spammers, and black hat SEO techniques. The moment black-hatters find a loophole, Google has closed it up and penalized the perpetrating sites. The one method that has shone through this confusing and constantly changing cloud of SEO do’s and do-not’s is this: The fundamental best practices of SEO will always be valued and only continue to be better served by Google’s search engine ranking algorithms. The fundamental best practices being; Strong and informative content is king combined with honest and accurate SEO meta-data. Focus on your content, provide the utmost of quality, information, usability, and readability.
This idea of content driven marketing that I’m referring to is also something known more commonly these days as content marketing. It is the basic idea that online marketing is best done through exquisite content, be that written, visual, video, interactive, social, et cetera. This is why some say SEO is dead, because they haven’t realized that SEO is very much alive, but has since evolved into a much more complex and sophisticated beast, including in large part a strong emphasis on hyper high-quality content marketing. They’ve become one in and of the same.
It is precisely why we at Boston Web Marketing always promote high quality content and swear by its effectiveness. Content is king, but strong, robust, and complete SEO strategy is his crown. SEO isn’t just a few keywords anymore, it’s a complex ecosystem of which you want to have all your bases covered for full effectiveness. The SEO technicalities will constantly evolve, morph, and change, as will Google, but one thing is for sure: Market yourself vigorously and with vigorous honesty, time cannot varnish that philosophy.