Is SEO A Thing of the Past?

Is SEO A Thing of the Past?

SEO stands for search engine optimization and has been around for almost 10-12 years. In the beginning, SEO practices were not standardized or popular and it was fairly easy to "game" the search engines.

However, with the advent of Google, things started to change. Google required webmasters to be more user-friendly to their visitors. It also shunned crude SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing and cloaking.

Over the years, SEO has changed. Whereas in the beginning it was just a way for webmasters to get quick traffic for the short term, SEO now is turning out more and more to be a long-term strategy.

With the recent Google algorithmic changes, many webmasters are suggesting that the SEO game is over, that the search engines are looking less at the number and quality of links and more at what type of "social proof" signals each website is generating.

I would beg to differ on this theory.

SEO is here to stay for the long term. Yes, the SEO game always consistently changes, but it does not mean that "links" as we know them will turn worthless simply because of an algorithmic tweak.

People do however need to understand that SEO is now turning out to be more and more difficult. Whereas in the beginning, SEO used to be a formula, a mathematical equation, it now seems to be more of an art to get your website into the top 3 Google listings.

If you are a new webmaster, you should be able to get your website ranked high if you take SEO as a long-term strategy, build links steadily and focus on quality as opposed to the quantity of backlinks.

Social signals and social proof is also now weighted more by Google algorithm, which implies that the more people like your website, the higher it will rank (generally speaking).

Many webmasters have stopped focusing on SEO because of the recent changes and have moved on to other traffic methods such as media buying etc. However, one main benefit from SEO is the fact that most of the traffic you receive is free.

Also, once your website gets decent backlinks from high standing websites, you can expect the site to generate traffic for months to come.

This is exactly what still makes SEO really appealing in the eyes of most webmasters.

SEO is definitely here to stay for the long-run although it is always a good idea to focus your efforts in finding new avenues of traffic.