SEO Marketing has never been more alive

For me, the concept of optimising web content has gone nowhere. In Yorkshire speak, Google has got the SEO industry to ‘wind their necks in’ with the spam and concentrate on delivering a compelling message. Call it what you want, SEO meets marketing…why not call it SEO marketing? Kind of nerd meets flower arranger I suppose.

The searcher’s needs have changed. Multiple devices, multiple online applications, and superfast broadband have scoped algorithmic advancements.

The search engine has created casualties. Thomson directory went pop in August 2013 – who will be next as Google have crushed middle men in many areas.

Then the area I have real affection for, the SEO world. Search engine manipulation brought the rise and in recent year the fall of numerous e-commerce entrepreneurs. 

The need for a webmaster hasn’t changed. We want to do business online because it is efficient for user and business alike. You might have read about ‘SEO’ in a broadsheet in the early 2000s or been given an introduction to a black hat rebel agency that could catapult you up the rankings like Geoff Capes tossing a Khyber.

What I am finding as a passionate digital marketer is that webmasters want inbound marketing success and understand that this can’t be approached in the same way as the web 2.0 years.
How well do you know your users?

From impressions, to visits to sales. For some, this is a simple  equation. For others, it is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions. Part of maturing as digital marketers has to be stretching the limits of web analytics to get the mix of online marketing right – not soaring ahead in one area to pause another. That means implementing interests tracking. That means analysing multi-attribution regularly.

Am I interested in dealing with Penguin penalties? No. I massively sympathise with the webmaster’s position but charging someone to not be penalised by Google is something that my overactive conscience struggles with. Panda penalties are a little different – farming traffic seemingly is a forgivable sin in big G’s eyes so website structure should float any SEO’s boat including mine.

SEO is alive. Hummingbird was a huge life line for any SEO with an appreciation for good online marketing. Semantic search demonstrates that the search engine still needs us and our web content. Search engine optimisation is defined by Google – period. Therefore if you want to work in SEO you need to be able to create high quality websites that people will share. We know that this isn’t easy. However, when I read that SEO development will have less investment I disagree because delivering ‘high quality websites that people will share’ is surely of more value than pinging a website up the rankings with a wave of artificial link building.

Invest in SEO projects that deliver value to your target market and to search engines that need your content in relation to highly relevant phrases, particularly when your prospective is in the early stages of the buying cycle and is searching colloquially to find solutions to their problems. Guess what – you’ll get long tail rankings and social shares.

#justsaying