Ok. That’s a little over dramatic. SEO isn’t dead, but conventional SEO thinking is and here’s why.
Conventional SEO Is Dead
SEO in the past meant trying to “fool” search engine’s into thinking your content was more relevant than it really is. A lot of them involved Black Hat SEO tactics like cloaking, spam and keyword stuffing. Google has over the years put a stop to these tactics, but scarily enough a lot of bad SEO people still use these techniques.
Others are still using Grey Hat techniques like link exchanges and guest blogging. With every new Google algorithm release these tactics have less of an impact on your rankings and some can begin to harm your rankings.
Also gone are the days of putting stringent restraints on content. Techniques like having a set amount of keyword density are losing steam across search engines. Instead content should be written for your audience, not for search engines!
SEO In The Modern Day
Today SEO is much different then it was 5 or 10 years ago. You’ve probably heard the saying “Content is king” but what does that mean? It means you should spend less time trying to “fool” search engines and more time putting out the best content for your websites target. If you focus on your customer or audience’s needs in a legitimate way, you will be rewarded on Google.
SEO Tactics You Should Stop Using Immediately
- Keyword density
- Links via commenting
- Guest posting
- Link exchanges
- Directory links
SEO Tactics You Should Adopt Immediately
- Concentrate on User Experience (UX) instead of keywords
- Writing content your audience/customers find intriguing, informative and/or shareable.
- Keep link building to a minimum. You still need to get your content out there, but if it’s really compelling content, you’ll find people will become brand ambassadors for you and begin linking or sharing socially without your prodding.
- Use H2, H3, etc headings for user readability, not for keyword stuffing.
The new SEO is all about formatting your content to be digested by people, not machines. Writing with Google in mind is dead, so please stop doing it.
Old SEO Techniques That Are Still Relevant
There are still old techniques that will help your Google ranking. You’ll notice that none of these are intended to “fool” Google, but are instead what I call “Technical Compliance SEO”. These tactics include:
- Proper Title and Meta tags
- Clean code
- Avoiding duplicate content
- Clean search engine friendly url’s
- Concise internal linking structures
If You Build It, They Will Come
If you take one thing away from this article it’s to adopt a people first approach to your SEO techniques. If your website and content is actually usefully to your audience/customer you will see your site climb the rankings faster then you could imagine.
Don’t fool yourself though. You might think your content is great and appealing just like everyone thinks that their kid is the greatest. Take a step back and analyze if you are filling a need.
- Does your content solve a problem?
- Does your content answer a common question?
- Does your content evoke an emotional response?
- DOES YOUR CONTENT MATTER?
If you answer no to these questions, then no amount of SEO will save your website.
SEO should be an augmentation of your content, not the vehicle that drives it.
