Almost every year at the beginning of the year someone decides to let us know that SEO is dead! Well, it has been dead for over 10 years according to the Nostradamus’s in marketing!
SEO is very much alive and doing just fine! Thanks for asking :). Now optimizing for Google has become the name of the game. With its domination in the search engine space, it is the place you want to be visible. What we as an SEO Company do now compared to just 5 years ago has changed as we ever evolve to keep up with all the changes Google makes. Search engine optimization has become more difficult and there are many more moving pieces.
Now if you are basing that SEO is dead on any experiences based on hiring an SEO company based on some email that says you do not rank and for the price of a cup of coffee a day they can have you ranking #1 then you are right that is dead and has been for quite some time.
So let’s get into what is not dead which is good SEO done with not just the search engine but the user in mind as well!
How is Good SEO Done These Days?
As Google has evolved and becomes ever more demanding in what they would like to see out of a website our list as experts becomes even longer. Long gone are the days where you could simply throw up some so so content and point some mediocre links at it and rank.
Doing things right in the current environment requires not just considering the algorithm and what it wants but also focusing on the user and what their needs are because nowadays this is very much part of good optimization.
So here are the top things on the list that you need to consider so that your SEO is not dead but alive and kicking!
- High-Quality Unique Engaging Content – So just content is not good enough you have to get content that is engaging as well as unique and informative or serves some sort of purpose to help users become informed or solve a problem.
- Technical SEO – This part has become ever more important since Google really wants your site to load fast. It is a ranking variable but also it is a consideration for the user and their interaction with your site. If a site loads slow users then to bounce off it and all your hard work in creating a site that has good content will be wasted. So make sure that the site is an SEO Friendly Website which should already be addressing this fact.
- High-Quality Links – Where once upon a time every link was a good link these days you want quality relevant links preferably from places in your industry. So how do you do link building these days that may come to mind? It’s more like link earning and outreach in order to get good viable links. Outreach means simply that to reach out to other relevant high authority sites and to work at getting a link. This is where the previous factors of high-quality content and a fast loading site will help. Most site owners that have a good site will not link to a slow loading website without any good content. You have to give them a reason to link to you and good high-quality content can help you do just that!
- Some Social Media Won’t Hurt! – Working on your social channels while not being a must certainly help your effort by getting your content seen by people and the possibility of it being shared and going viral.
- Image Optimization – Adding some quality images can also help your efforts in becoming more visible.
- Make Your Site User-Friendly – Making your site friendly to users is a must! Google looks at your bounce rate and the time people are spending on your site to gauge if you merit good rankings.
While there are many signals these are the biggest ones to consider for your SEO to not be dead.
SEO & Brand Awareness
With so many ways to market online why would, a business still want to invest in search engine optimization is a question that comes up in business owners’ minds. Well, it’s more about how much visibility can you get online to build your brand as well as getting good rankings and what is that worth?
There are 40K searches On Google every second!
With 40,000 search queries, every second on Google does it not seem like a no brainer that you would want to be visible for relevant search queries for your industry? You can build quite a lot of brand awareness by consistently appearing in relevant searches. When people see you everywhere they start to associate your brand as being a name in your industry that everyone is aware of. Not only does this build brand awareness but also trust. You combine this with some good informative content for consumers to see how knowledgeable you are in your space and you have a winning combination for not only establishing your brand but also gaining a new client!
Why Not Just Pay For PPC Ads?
While you can definitely pay for ads on Google and other networks it can get costly in a hurry! Optimization while taking a bit longer and being a long term investment in your website can be much more cost-effective in the long run! One thing that many businesses that are starting off online opt for is a PPC campaign for immediate visibility and then when the SEO starts to get them ranking they widdle down the PPC budget by removing terms they are visible on.
PPC works but it’s much like renting. The day you do not pay you’re gone! Where search engine optimization is much like owning your own house. It takes a bit but once you have your house built with good maintenance it will last a long time!