The Bane of SEO’s Existence
Search engine optimization is dead. At least, that’s what critics, naysayers and haters would tell you. Each time there’s a major algorithm update, they all jump at the opportunity to stir up some controversy. SEO is not dead, however. In fact, SEO is very much alive and well. That’s not to say that SEO hasn’t evolved.
SEO evolves when tactics die. Personally, I’m glad some of these tactics that have died. It has improved the SEO industry. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and cloaking. No longer do you need mass amounts of pointless backlinks to rank. These are good things. It has forced a very young industry to drop tech tricks and move toward legitimate marketing strategies.
To continue moving in this direction, it’s time we stop focusing on Google, its updates and its search crawlers. These are the bane of SEO’s existence. Catering to Google and spending resources to play the search game by their ever-changing rules is misguided. I’m not saying it isn’t important to stay abreast of these changes, I’m simply stating that our marketing efforts need to be focused on people – consumers, customers or prospective customers.
SEO can’t continue to operate in a vacuum as a remote marketing strategy. SEO needs to be a part of your strategic marketing plan. Through analytics, research and testing, SEO can help solve some of your largest marketing challenges. Stop thinking tactical SEO and start thinking about strategic SEO.
