Is SEO Still Necessary?

Share This Post

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around what seems like forever.  It’s a loosely used term which really means getting your website to show higher in search engines by optimizing the signals Google is looking for.  Everyone wants their website to show high in search engines, but is SEO still the tool to get it there?

Background of SEO

In years past, webmasters noticed that if they optimized their websites they would see better results in search engines.  Google by the way, wasn’t even born yet.  Leading search engines were Altavista, Infoseek, Snap, Lycos, Excite, HotBot, Looksmart, Ask Jeeves among many more.  There used to be 30 good ones.  Now there are a small handful of popular ones and one really good one (Google).  Webmasters (before Internet Marketing Companies existed) noticed if they pushed the optimizing signals even further by giving search engines more of what they were looking for, they got even better ranking results.  And so the boundaries were stretched… and then stretched some more.  SEO companies started to be born promoting their new found secrets to search engine rankings.

Search engines either fell to the wayside or got smarter to combat these manipulative ways. Even Google in the early years was not great.  When search engines would combat the cheating with stricter rules, webmasters and SEO companies would find new rules to push to the brink and beyond.  And so it continued…

Fast Forward to Today

Today Google is like 100x smarter than the smartest people at Google. They have built a monster.  A very, very smart monster and anyone who thinks they can outsmart it, is not being realistic.

In short, there really isn’t any ranking signals left to over optimize and abuse anymore.  In fact, there are now penalties and consequences to face if abusing the rules.  SEO has left a bad taste in some companies mouths.  One of the biggest players in Search Engine Optimization, SEOmoz, just removed “SEO” from their name and are now known as, Moz.

Is SEO Still Necessary?

So if you are still engaged with the wrong SEO / Internet Marketing company, chances are you might just be throwing your money away or worse yet hurting yourself in the process.

That being said, Google is definitely still looking for websites that are search engine optimized with their content and source code including page titles, header tags and search engine friendly URL’s among other things.  These are signals found on your website.  Where recent abuse happened is external signals or signals not found on your website, but found throughout the Internet.

Link building has been abused.  Although not a bad practice in itself, most links manually being built are for the sole purpose of optimizing those external signals Google is looking for.  Google says provide great content and a great website and people will naturally link to you. Because, let’s face it… links do matter from an authoritative point of view.  Fabricating links is not what Google wants though and they will dock you for it if the links seem fabricated.

SEO – The Bigger Picture

The correct way to look at SEO today is to embrace the bigger picture of Internet Marketing as a whole.  SEO is just one of the tools in a true marketing companies tool belt. Content marketing has become mainstream, although it’s a term many are still unfamiliar with.  It’s the concept of creating more valuable content that engages readers with your website.  Your readers visit duration is longer, bounce rates are lower, more pages are viewed… these are all signals Google is looking at that often get overlooked.  A good SEO strategy should involve content, marketing, conversion goals and other metrics to ultimately get more leads for the website owner.

We are here to inform you so you can make the best decisions regarding Internet Marketing with your hard earned dollars.

Your Course of Action

Since SEO is a loosely used term, some Internet Marketing companies may still refer to it as SEO because that’s what business owners are asking for.  But strategies should be more content based and the principles used should fall into more of the Internet Marketing label.

When you ask for search engine optimization from WebTek, what we really are giving you is content based Internet Marketing strategies along with rock solid SEO fundamentals that abide by Google’s wishes and Google rewards our sites because of it.  Isn’t it time you turn your search engine optimization (SEO) into real Internet Marketing campaigns with WebTek?

Quote