From its inception, SEO has had its share of controversy. However, 24 years down the line, it is still one of the most sought-after markets in the digital marketing world. But as the landscape of online searches has evolved, we must ask ourselves: is SEO worth it? Or is it overhyped and outdated?
To put it succinctly, yes. SEO still has its benefits. However, over the years SEO has changed. So much so that without proper application, SEO can seem unfruitful.
Why do some companies believe SEO to be dead?
It’s quite simple. SEO has evolved. And it isn’t easy.
Gone are the days when you could stuff keywords and create multiple backlinks to rank high on a google search. With how many searches are done on Google each day, the most visited sites are the ones that actually answer users’ questions. So if your content isn’t optimized to be user-friendly or address frequently asked questions, you can’t expect to be seen on the first page of a Google search.
Some SEO strategies that were once effective have ceased to be useful. SEO is effective when content on the web matches user intent and eliminates spammy inefficient approaches.
Many businesses with inefficient strategies have suffered and as a result, swear that SEO is useless. But If such a business hired an SEO agency for exorbitant costs, and that agency used outdated means in an attempt to increase google search traffic, the business would never do well in ranking.
SEO Still Thrives
Despite those who believe SEO is a lazy form of marketing and that google lies about search results, it’s still effective for many businesses today.
A peek at Google Trends for terms like ‘SEO Consultancy’ reveals a significant rising trend. That is to say, SEO is not a dying business. In fact, it’s becoming more important by the year.
Not only does SEO really work, but it is also a booming industry that seems to be expanding each year. Its growth over the years is a major reason why SEO is important for businesses. What matters is you get rid of ineffective techniques so that you get results.
Reasons SEO Is Still Relevant
Despite the buzz against it, SEO is still effective today, for a number of reasons.
1. Consumers Have Faith In Google.
Consumers are unquestionably confident in the results Google returns when they make a search. They believe Google has provided them with the most relevant results for their query. A high Google ranking increases your organic traffic. And that’s why SEO is effective. The top ranking on any particular search result will receive roughly 21% of potential clicks, and the number decreases to 7.5 % by the third-highest ranking. It’s clear to see why getting a good Google ranking is so crucial.
Despite Google’s algorithm adjustments and frequent revisions, the importance of SEO in 2021 is arguably more evident than ever.
2. More People Turn To Search Engines Each Year
With more people addicted to their smartphones and using them for everything – from scheduling dinner reservations to shopping for everything online – it’s no wonder that a huge percent of smartphone users conduct a daily Google search. Google search traffic has gone up in recent years. Consequently, optimizing your website for SEO is the simplest approach for your company to appear at the top of customers’ searches. Smartphone users are increasingly using voice search, which means your company has an even better chance of getting discovered organically, emphasizing the importance of effective SEO.
3. Thanks To Google, SEO is important for business
As marketers are well aware, there are other search engines apart from Google: Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and a slew of others. So is Google dead?
Definitely not. Google has a much higher share of the search market than its competitors. Of course, these search engines help brands get noticed. It’s just that Google controls a sizable chunk of the search business.
With over 1 billion active users, Google is still the most leading email platform in America and on the planet.
The visibility of a brand on most search engines will always work to its advantage. For better visibility, however, you want to prioritize Google search traffic.
Crappy SEO Techniques
Before we discuss effective kinds of SEO we can have a look at the ones that make people fail to see why SEO is important.
Here are some bad SEO techniques which people could get away with in the early 2000s, but will give you zero visibility these days:
1. Overusing Keywords
It’s of no SEO value to repeat the same keywords over and over again, not because they’re beneficial in the content, but because you hope it will optimize your material.
A reader knows when content is written in a way that doesn’t pass information, with keywords sticking out weirdly in every sentence. If you practice that, you’ll end up wondering why SEO didn’t work for you. Rather than stuff your content, you want to maintain a keyword density that’s high enough to keep you relevant on Google, but also readable.
2. Content Duplication
One thing you want to make sure of is that your material is distinctive.
One harmful technique in the SEO checklists is to have duplicate material on your website. After all, if search engines already have the exact content as you in their index, there is no need for your page to be indexed because it offers nothing new.
3. Cloaking
Before the modern SEO changes, cloaking was very rampant. Cloaking involves hiding the true destination of a link and serving various copies of a page to visitors and search engine crawlers.
Your page should only have one version both for visitors and crawlers. It’s also helpful to ensure that consumers can tell the difference between the content for your website and advertisements.
Effective SEO Techniques
1. Focus on User Experience
It’s all about delighting users at Google. As a result, a website with a positive user experience will almost certainly rank highly. The importance of SEO reflects when you speed up your page’s load time, include media into your material, and optimize for mobile devices. All these are things to consider when it comes to the user experience.
2. Use Keywords Naturally
As search engines get more intelligent, you don’t want your content to not be relevant in google search results. it’s becoming more crucial to make your content topically relevant rather than mechanically keyword-focused.
Here’s a better way to use keywords: rather than forcing keywords down your readers’ throats, try to incorporate them as naturally as possible. The idea is for the content to flow naturally while containing the right number of keywords, which are crucial queries that consumers have about the issue.
What’s the result? Your website generates more google search traffic. Because readers like a quick read that isn’t forced and delivers solutions to their difficulties.
3. Organize the content of your page
When your webpage content is organized it increases the SEO value of your page. Users can understand what parts are about because your content is clearly structured with headers and title tags.
This is where your keywords will come in handy as well. They help Google figure out what the page is about and how well it covers the topic in comparison to other pages. With an organized page,
Final Thoughts
Content optimization for search engines is still very much active. True, SEO today is not what it used to be. Former approaches are no longer in use, but modern ones which focus on how search engines evaluate information today are still effective. From the looks of it, SEO is not fading in importance anytime soon.
