SEO was Important in Past Decade, is Important in This Decade, And Will be Important in Next Decade…
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Last week Jeremy Shoemaker made a post SEO’s Need To Adapt Or Die explaining that SEO’s need to blame themselves and not recession. Jeremy also pointed that SEO is not important as it used to be because everyone knows how to make site appear on top of Google and many technology companies create SEO friendly products which can help.
I’ll agree with Jeremy that SEO’s need to change to stay in business but I am defiantly not agree about technology companies. Of course many content management platforms are trying to create software which is SEO friendly but there are still a lot of work needs to be done by human being who can review product and make adjustments. Wordpress, for example, there are still a lot of fixes needs to be allied by professional SEO. Most content management providers create custom product for everyone, but every website and idea is unique and it is work of SEO specialist to improve new shopping blog, photo blog, blog social site, or business news for search engines.
I worked with more than 60 car dealerships which use about 10 different inventory management websites… all, all of them was not really SEO friendly and my job was to improve whole content management system to make it work. In car business you want your dealership appear #1 when people type on Google “New Honda Accord in Boston” or “2004 Jeep Liberty in Massachusetts”. It is almost impossible to rank even in top 100 when your flash site list all Honda’s on URL with 150 characters without meta tags or any text descriptions. SEO work is to improve URL structure, make some text readable, and build at least some internal and external links to bring search engines to page with Honda Accord vehicles on it.
Search Engine Optimization was important in past decade, is important in this decade, and will be important in next decade…
In 1998 it was important to bring as much as possible random traffic from Yahoo, AltaVista, Dogpile… to grow your “bubble” and go public.
In 2005 it was important to get high Pagerank and rank #1 on Google with popular keyword and bring people to your homepage.
Now it is important to integrate your offline and online advertising, bring targeted traffic to your landing page, create convertion funnel, and convert people from visitors in to hand raisers (customers).
SEO to integrate online and offline advertising.
SEO became an important part during pre-production of your offline advertising. People behavior changed in the recent years and no one buys products and services right after they saw ad on TV, newspaper, mailer, or other offline ad. People go online to make research, compare offers, find better price, and make decision. It is SEO work to create banners, pop-ups, landing pages as a welcome message for those who was driven by offline ad. Product name, description, and slogan which appears in offline ad needs to be optimized and rank #1 on major search engines when offline ad goes live. Smart SEO’s create additional support using pay-per-click and social media.
Tracking and lead management is another part of SEO work. It helps to understand what is really working and make adjustments right away (not after the fact). Of course, Google Analytics is a great tool but believe me, for general public it is still hard to understand how to use it and realize how to apply changes in their ad, conversion page, conversion process.
SEO to manage online reputation.
Social media became a powerful source for people to share information especially when we talk about shopping experience, customer service, and businesses. One of my clients told me: “I can have 10 happy customers and one person who left disappointed… but only from this unhappy person you’ll hear later”. One bad review or complaint can turn away many potential customer and damage business reputation. There are already some companies who offer Online Reputation Management services but they are just regular SEO’s who changed their names a little bit. Only experienced search engine optimization specialist can help to create social profiles, find where bad publicity comes from (you think it’s Yelp, not always), and help to optimize good reviews, articles, or feedbacks.
“Old fashioned SEO” is still on demand.
You can be the biggest company in your area but some small guy can rank way higher than you and generate more traffic to a website. It happened with my client who came to me and told: “I have the biggest and oldest marina in the area but some guy with wooden house, 3 docks, and 2 boats which about to sink rank better than me”. Unfortunately if you are small business owner Google can’t read how big is your store, how many square feet you have for storage area, or how much many people buy your product. Google cares about how your site build, content, links, domain age… and other stuff (read our article about Google Algorithm).
SEO specialist can help to rebuild a website, create backlinks from related sites, help to improve rankings, and create better web visibility.
SEO for start-ups.
Jeremy Shoemaker said “people are making great products available to these businesses for a fraction of the cost”. But still, you can build perfect website with good URL structure, quality content, organized folders etc. But without links from related sites I doubt site will rank on Google. You still need search engine optimization to find related sites, business networks, social networks to create at least some links and move your site forward.
