Is SEO Dead?

One of our clients recently asked us, “Is SEO dead? I’ve been talking to people and reading ‘stuff’ that says it is”… which prompted me to write this post.

To a degree, traditional, old school SEO is dead yes. 

• The days of getting as many links as possible to your website regardless of quality and relevance is dead (this method has never been ‘alive’ in our eyes).

• The days of writing crappy content that no-one would ever read is dead.

• The days of using exact match anchor text in your back links can now get you penalised.

I could go on and on.

Google is moving the goal posts. What used to work doesn’t anymore, and what’s more, what used to work will now get you into trouble.

Google wants to clean up its index. And so it should. Google only wants to display high quality and relevant links in the search results. Google wants its users to find what they’re looking for so they continue to use their search engine (so that Google can continue to make £££’s from AdWords PPC advertising).

SEO isn’t dead.  It's just changing shape.

 

It’s about knowing what Google wants. And Google wants its users to be happy. So there you go… simple… give your audience what they want and Google will be happy.

Here’s one tip on how to do this.

You must create high quality and relevant content – but what does that mean and how do you measure it?

What is good content? 

 

This basically means creating value to keep your audience engaged. Write content (whether it be website content, blog articles, news stories etc.) that your audience will actually spend time reading and will share with their own social network of followers and friends. Be an authority on your subject. Be opinionated. Your content should be compelling.

Good content can be measured by...

• the number of times people link back to your website or blog
• the number of retweets or followers you get on Twitter
• how many people ‘circle’ you in Google+
• how many comments your article or news story gets
• how many people share your content within their own social network (known as word of mouth marketing)

There are many more things to consider of course. You need to know who your audience is so you can give them what they want.

What else should we think of?

It isn’t all about content. Think branding, website design, site usability/ease of use, product/service pricing, authority/respect, USP (unique selling point) and more.

But these are for another post.