As we discussed on this blog back in May (Is SEO a Science? Yes, probably; but is this the right question?) the SEO industry has grown exponentially over the past few years often suggesting a tantalisingly easy fix to driving traffic to your website with a consequent rise in business opportunities – the magic wand of marketing? But as we all know (do we?) there is no such thing as a magic wand and now it seems a cloud is descending over the promised land of SEO This post which came in over the weekend from Forbes.com is definitely adding fuel to the fire of the SEO debate.
Naturally it is always interesting to get the views and opinions of others; Here is a quote:
“Google is in the process of making the SEO industry obsolete, SEO will be dead in 2 years.”Quite something! But actually, if you read the article, you will see a great deal of common sense. Take this extract:
The bottom line is that all SEO efforts are counterfeit other than one: Writing, designing, recording, or videoing real and relevant content that benefits those who search. If you generate content and place it all over the web promoting and linking to your specific content, it is obviously fake. (And that is basically the SEO industry....
Undoubtedly SEO services will be around for a little while yet, but there is a growing school of thought that devoting significant resource to ‘engineering’ high search engine rankings may be coming less worthwhile. We always recommend that, particularly for SME businesses, getting good, relevant content on your website and making sure that it is regularly updated is an essential element of your marketing and a valuable contribution to ‘catching the eye’ of the Google algorithm. Furthermore, it is something you should be able to do yourself (if you can’t, give us a call and we will show you how you can). However, to suggest that any one approach is the answer to your marketing prayers is equally inappropriate. This said, businesses often look at marketing activities in isolation, project by project, tool by tool (networking today, advertising tomorrow, email on Thursday, pay-per-click on Friday etc.) Actually, the real value comes from seeing each as part of the whole and ensuring that your marketing is joined-up and consistent.
