Have you heard some people say that legitimate white hat search engine optimization is now dead with the coming of Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing?
Rest assured that while everything changes, search engine optimization and search engine marketing are far from being dead. I am happy to say search marketing is still very much alive and well and healthier than ever.
In the world of search engine marketing, you do need to keep up to date. But keeping up to date does not always mean that it needs to be stressful. There are ways to take advantage and prepare for changes and even take advantage of coming changes, if you can first understand what they are and only if you are aware that they are coming.
Future SEO Changes On the Horizon:
There are a lot of changes just on the horizon right now that will modify the traditional SEO process as many think of it today.It’s about to change and evolve again once more.
- What effect will video have on search as results begin to display video?
- What about the fact that search engines grade keyword phrases on a curve? It’s true, not all keywords are graded equally but they are industry influenced as well. This is not new information for anyone who engages in good research but for many students of SEO, it is real “eye-opener” when we teach on it in the class.
- Will social marketing or Web 2.0 completely wipe out traditional SEO as some marketers would have you believe?
Let’s talk about one of the biggest changes that we anticipate. Before I just tell you what is happening, I want hopefully raise your awareness of this by explaining a scenario.
We need to understand it thoroughly, because many will not know what in the world is happening.This is just one change that may actually separate SEO novices from the SEO professionals who have been structurally trained in search marketing skills.
It has already started to happen and we anticipate it will only increase from here on in. Whether or not you choose to recognize it or whether or not you even agree with me is not the point. The point is you will have an awareness of exactly what changes are going on so you won’t be in a state of panic about it.
Here’s the Scenario:
Keep an open mind and let me paint the scenario for you, as crazy as it sounds:
In fact you may one day check your rankings and see your pages are still showing up well in the very top search results.]But the ranking reports will become completely non-discernable and a useless indicator of your Web site’s visibility.
Think about a time not to far off when, according to your ranking reports your visibility may soar higher than ever. After all you are not doing anything you should not be. Your site has had good rankings for years so why should this have happened? It does not make any sense at all but your sales are mysteriously falling flat dead. You notice something is wrong with your sales and yet you can not understand the reasoning.
“This is just crazy Nonsense!,” you may think to yourself. So you decide to run your reports again for dozens of your top performing phrases. To your complete amazement you can’t see anything wrong at all. You are solidly ranking number 1 for the most competitive and important money phrases and for all your important keyword terms.
Everything looks wonderful but you have one major problem that remains.
Your sales have come to a stop.
Nothing like this has ever happened before. You call your search marketing firm and they tell you they have never dealt with anything like this before. In these times, many SEOs will scramble to try and figure out what is happening. You will think it is impossible to improve in ranking any more than number 1 for your best phrases. But in these times SEOs are noticing that this phenomena is occurring all over the place.
Michael Marshall is a respected SEO associate educator and advanced mathematician who has taught with Robin Nobles and I over the last several years. Michael is a technical expert who often teaches at our Ultra Advanced Symposiums as well as in his own Search Engine Academy in North Carolina.
Here is a recent quote from an article that Michael published.
He states it this way:
“Without a reliable means of rank checking, traditional SEO loses its foundations for optimization decisions. They can’t tell who the leaders are. They’ve lost sight of the bellwethers. A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings. Without a bellwether, for example, sheep might be left to wander aimlessly. Without a reliable means of rank checking, traditional SEO also loses its metrics for determining its success or failure regarding changes made for the sake of optimization. Traditional SEO is a process the methodology of which is predominantly trial and error.”
Your job as an SEO professional is to keep up to date in an ever changing environment and keep your self apprised of current and future trends. You want to keep yourself aware of what is coming next because that way, you’ll always be able to assist your customers with up to date skills and advantages regardless of the changing search landscapes.
About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles. Check the next seo skill building course agenda. Read a few SEO student success stories