As we head into 2015, it’s time to re-evaluate the importance of SEO, and the techniques that we use. Many advertising managers are under pressure to cut their spending, and they will often find themselves being pressured to prove that their online marketing, PPC and SEO work is actually effective.
SEO is not a “do once” marketing technique. It requires ongoing investment, and it can take a while for the results of your SEO efforts to start to appear. This makes justifying the expense of SEO difficult, at first. Every year, at least one marketing guru declares that “SEO is dead”, and that claim makes it even harder to justify working on SEO. These claims, as interesting as they sound, are highly questionable.
The “SEO is dead” claim is a nice shock tactic, but it is not a claim that has much basis in reality. SEO has changed a lot in recent years, but it is far from dead. Rather, SEO has simply changed a lot as Google has changed what it is looking for in its ranking algorithms. The quick and dirty marketing techniques that worked well a few years ago, catapulting keywords to the top of the SERPs, are no longer effective, and could actually be harmful to your rankings. In addition, Google is no longer the only player in the search space. If you want to do well online today, you have to consider not just Google, but also Bing, and vertical specific search engines.
Mobile SEO and local search are also important. Mobiles have replaced the desktop as the platform of choice for most people when it comes to online shopping and product research. New devices and new user habits require new marketing techniques. The old idea of throwing up a website, building some links and waiting for the traffic to come in will no longer offer great results. Today, good SEO means creating great content, having a mobile friendly website, having good links, and using rich snippets and metadata to ensure that your site ranks well and has eye-catching search results. Cheap links, article marketing and spammy email lists are a thing of the past.
The definition of SEO may have changed, but the basic idea is still relevant in 2015. Why not make this year the one in which you truly build up a strong and healthy brand for your website?
