No I don’t believe it is. SEO is still a vital force in the search engines, but how it is done is most certainly evolving. SEO, like many marketing tools, is ever changing and the way we approach optimising websites is so different to just a few years ago.
The fundamental, and simple, difference is search engines are working attentively and carefully to provide their users with the best search results possible. Which basically means people are staying on your website long enough to take an action, because you are giving them a solution to their problem with great content that matches their search criteria.
So is content the new revelation in SEO? No, content has been around for hundreds of years. Content is old. Content has always been a pivot to engaging with people - customers, informing them and adding value, and building relationships with followers and readers. Content has always been a very important part of SEO, but seemed to be lost until recently when Google announced its drive towards creating better value to users and customers to build relationships. Quality content is the powerhouse behind good SEO.
It is simple really, if people visiting your site don’t like your content, well, it unlikely Google will either. The emphasis of SEO has moved from link farming and poor quality content – like articles posted onto thousands of blogs in hope of gaining votes, or links, from Google. Gone are those days, thankfully, and we now base our optimisation on quality and informative content. The old spamming way of optimising a website, albeit quick, is dated and very deceptive.
Creating good quality content that is engaging, sells and solves your customer’s problem isn’t easy. It is an art, with a twist of science too, and really means keeping the heart of your content focused on your customer and addressing their needs with your product or service, and not worrying about Google - it will naturally follow and reward you.
What parts of my SEO could I change fairly easily to improve my rank, traffic and conversions?
Start blogging!
You should be blogging regularly. By producing good quality and relevant content – which can be in the form of a blog, means you can share it! And, from and SEO point means you are engaging with your readers and customers providing informative pieces that are useful and true. Google picks this up as positive and quality content, raising your rank, to which your followers and conversion follow shortly. The aim should be to provide the content regularly and not as and when you feel in the mood. You may feel blogging is time consuming, and yes it is, but there is a solution to this problem too – if you don’t know anyone in your company that could dedicate time to writing, it is well worth budgeting for a copywriting service, content marketing company or expert to help you out. They will have the knowledge, strategy and time to help you target your customer.
Stop using article spinning tactics!
Article spinning is the root of greedy marketers. You can spin an article many times over to create more of the same – different words, same meaning and more often than not useless content of no value to any reader, let alone the search engines.
Google has been working hard towards penalising practices like article or content spinning taken on by many good marketers for the sake of an easy rise up a search engine, and through the hopes of gaining links. Spinning was quick and easy and did work, for a while, but there is no negating spinning is dead.
Google likes honesty, so start earning your links and create your own valuable content.
Consider context!
Perhaps slightly obscure and much less thought about, but I feel it is worth my adding the point. As if well-written content isn’t enough, the context that surrounds your content is an element on the rise for marketers to consider when writing copy for blogs, websites and articles. Google doesn’t understand contextual grammar as yet, but the results coming up in the search engines have more to do with the person doing the SEO understanding the content well enough. This ensures the content is relevant on the website page and can fulfil the need of several contextually similar queries coming in from a search performed.
SEO is not dead or dying, but merely evolving. Search engines will always need to base their search results on some criteria, so they continue to produce the best results related to a search. Without SEO, what could Google determine its findings by? Searchers or readers will always use keywords or phrases to look for something, so most unlikely that SEO will be eliminated.
What has emerged is better SEO, banishing poorly written articles and blogs distributed on thousands of forums, networks and websites. Instead we have made way for informative, user friendly and engaging sites creating an overall better user value – which is Google doing what it should be doing!
Article by Natalie Eastaugh
photo credit: Search Influence via photopin cc
