SEO As You Know It Is Dead… Here’s 4 Reasons Why

Remember the days when you would just hire some random “SEO Company” to get ranked for your favorite keywords?  All it took was a good guy or gal just finding links and stuffing your page with content and BAM! you’re ranked.

Well, Search engine optimization as you know it is dead. Simply picking a few keywords to rank for is no longer effective for those who want to be successful over the long-term in their online marketing strategies. Times have changed and businesses need to adapt to the new best practices.

Here are 4 reasons why SEO as we USED to do it no longer works and how things have changed.

#1 Google is a lot Smarter

SEO has always been an evolving industry. This is because Google and other search engines constantly refine the way their systems serve up results to users. Back in the old days of SEO, tactics like “keyword stuffing” were enough to get you ranked in a top spot. Today, adding a certain number of keywords into your webpages will not do anything for your rankings. Google has collected tons of data over the years, and in many cases, they know exactly what users want to see when searching for something. Google and other search engines won’t serve users pages that simply have a high number of keywords in them. Rather, they will show pages that have engaging, useful information.

#2 Search Engine Optimization is More than just Google

While Google still drives a large amount of traffic, SEO is more diverse than it once was. People are going to different sources to find what they need. A presence on platforms like Pinterest, Youtube, and Yelp are vital to online marketing efforts. Each of these platforms can rightly be considered search engines in and of themselves. Properly optimizing a business or brand for search engines means optimizing for these platforms too, not just Google. SEO is now more about building a presence wherever your target audience is spending their time.

#3 Its Content Driven

Link building has long been a staple of SEO. It is the art of obtaining links back to your website from other websites or platforms. In the old days, you could simply swap links with another website or buy links, and it could positively influence your search engine rankings. In modern SEO practice, obtaining valuable links from authoritative sites and influencers is done by creating great content. If you want people to link to your website, then it must have high-quality content.

#4 More Platforms are Becoming Pay-to-Play

Google Adwords has long been one of the paid methods of online marketing. This is likely going to become more common. There is even evidence to suggest that paid ads will start popping up in the local finder results. Facebook also offers paid ads, and organic methods offer limited results on the platform. In short, to optimize for these platforms, some knowledge of paid ads will come in handy.

Focusing on old SEO techniques and the backend technical details does not bring the results that businesses are looking for. That’s why BrandNation isn’t just an SEO company. Modern SEO practices are one of the strategies we implement as part of a bigger formula for online marketing. At BrandNation, we use SEO, social media, and some traditional marketing to generate leads for our clients. At the end of the day, the metric we focus on the most is how many leads we have brought to our clients. To succeed in online marketing, businesses and brands need to focus on a strategy that is bigger than traditional SEO alone.