Is SEO Dead?
Don't Write the Obituary yet
Over the previous years,SEO has been declared dead countless times.
SEO was declared useless first when Panda hit the scene and alternatively when the Penguin update was unveiled. Those had been algorithm modifications that altered the manner that Google ranked and organized the content it discovered. Those updates penalized and de-listed a massive variety of web sites and in reality cost many businesses thousands of dollars – even destroying their businesses in lots of cases.
All of the techniques that had once reliably worked to help a internet site climb the ranks – posting hyperlinks on link directories and writing content with lots of keywords – turned into unexpectedly getting sites banned.
Search engine optimization was declared dead by many a naysayer, stating that it was no longer the most effective method for traffic due to the fact the antique techniques no longer worked. This was due to the fact Google made it clear that it didn’t want to see human beings trying to manipulate the variables and cheat the system. Each time someone finds a way to ‘beat’ Google and get to the top, the probabilities are that Google is going to adapt and punish them.
Really, that’s entirely what search engine optimization is about?
How Have things changed?
Of course human beings adapted and created new techniques to deal with this. For a long time, this meant depending almost purely on ‘visitor posts’, which are posts that a author creates on some other internet site with links embedded to their website. The web site owners get free content material and the post creators get a link back to their site – everyone wins. This manner, showed that creators had been partnering with the best manufacturers on the web and they could be taken seriously as a end result.
However even visitor posting can get you into trouble. Matt Cutts, who works at Google, came right out and stated that over-reliance on visitor posting could get your web site penalized too. Why? because it’s obvious that you’ve once again been trying manipulating the machine.
If every single one of your posts takes the same format and layout and they’re all on similar blogs… well then it's going to look as though you’ve ‘performed a deal’ with the weblog creator.
Which you have…
And now Google is getting extra complex and strategic in its technique. Google is considering such things as bounce rates, personalized searches and a variety of other criteria. Those are all factors that we haven't been able to manipulate in many instances. Or at a minimum have no direct to way to manipulate.
Is SEO still worth it?
So, is SEO in reality useless? Is it better to depend upon social media advertising, which appears to be growing all of the time?
The answer is yes and no.
SEO isn’t useless and in reality, it hasn’t even changed. The trouble is our interpretation of search engine optimization and what it suggests to us.
Search engine optimization isn’t trying to trick Google. Search engine optimization is operating in conjunction with Google. SEO means doing the things it takes to increase your probabilities of rating highly in the search engines like Google, without getting into trouble.
If that means changing your web site to a blue color scheme to decrease bounces, then this is search engine optimization.
And if the method method you are counting on for traffic is social media marketing, then that is great because SEO uses social media as one of its ranking factors.
A great SEO provider knows this and ought to be able to offer a cohesive and comprehensive advertising and marketing strategy that takes numerous factors into consideration.
Your SEO campaign should be part of of a bigger marketing plan that is fitted to your specific needs and desires.