Written by Danica on 07.28.2015

Is SEO Really Dead?

What You Need to Know About SEO Strategies in 2013

Photo by: Torsten Maue

The news that search engine optimization is dead began shortly after SEO first became an industry many years ago – eons in “Internet time.” The truth is that good SEO is still around and is designed to stay for years. Bad SEO will also continue for the foreseeable future as the online arms race continues. No matter what color hat (or kerchief) you wear, we have some thoughts about SEO strategy in 2013 that will be useful to you.

Photo By: Bob Massa

SEO and the Art of War

Having someone update all of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to apply to SEO and online marketing would be interesting to read perhaps, but in actuality it’s not really needed. A strong SEO strategy consists of a few components.

• Know the Rules – The first thing you need to do is make sure you know the rules. This means reading everything that the major search engines publish in regards to what they think is fair play.
• Follow the Rules – Once you know the rules, make sure you follow them. Don’t look for legal loopholes to crawl through. Instead, follow the spirit of the rules – which is a better Internet for everyone.
• Be Creative – Last but certainly not least, you need to be creative and think outside the box. Sometimes this means hiring a professional who can put together a complete content marketing campaign.

Content is King of SEO Land

Social signals, time spent on a website and a long list of other factors come into play when determining what websites will appear first in the search engine rankings, but all of these can be summed up with saying that Content is King. It should be noted that this phrase refers to quality content, not just anything you can throw together.

While low quality content may have been okay in years past, the Internet has evolved. The SEO arms race has gone through many cycles, raising the bar for people to be able to compete. The best bet for most companies and brands is to produce top-notch content and market that content to the right audience.

Doing this will enable you to get social signals (likes and shares) as well as people spending longer periods of time on your site – all the things your website needs to do to rank high in the SERPs. Having an active conversation on your site also helps. In some ways it could be said that Community is Queen of the kingdom – but that’s for a future article.

For now, just know that SEO is not dead. Easy SEO is perhaps, but this is a good thing for everyone involved.

Posted Under: Blog

Tags:

Comments are closed.