There has been a lot of navel gazing within the SEO industry this year.
You couldn’t move without someone numpty publishing an SEO is Dead post
This is mostly because the landscape has changed. The way Google ranks its results has changed. What was working within the SEO industry was not aligned with what Google wanted.
A number of techniques that only recently worked very well to get a website ranked in Google no longer works, although it’s interesting to note that quite a number of people and seo agencies are working in an outmoded fashion.
We already know this and many bytes of blog posts have been crunched to bring us that news, again and again.
The old way of working is mostly dead
I say mostly dead as there are exceptions, the old way of doing things still works for those who have built a machine with processes that are efficient enough to dodge the Google hit squad.
We even see that dodgy widget links still work and even work for Google themselves, whilst preaching it is a sin and will send you to ranking hell. Blackhat still works, but the probability of being crushed is way to high.
The point being, that if you want to build a decent, medium to long term business that delivers an effective you need a new way of doing things.
The methodology of SEO has mostly been about busting the algo, backward engineering how the Google machine works, identifying weak spots and then drilling into those spots. It’s a methodology that requires a specific mindset, a somewhat technical ability and a super hero ability to wield Excel spreadsheets without having to wear underpants on the outside.
This mindset is still needed, it’s simply no longer the killer it used to be.
Vomiting the long tail onto your title tags not longer emits the sweet odour it once did. Even hardcore, outsourced to tropical countries, manic article creation no longer works, and also industrial guest posting is liable to send your website down the toilet.
Interesting thing is, a lot of websites still employ these tactics.
It’s interesting, because it means that those working the “new way of thinking”, are going to be those who will win.
So what is the new way of thinking?
Well it’s actually quite simple and it’s something I have been preaching for years, so it’s not like I am revealing a huge secret.
The New Way of Thinking is:
You Publish for People.
Which has actually been working for thousands of years, it’s only recently we have been formatting our communicative output for the Google robot.
And yes this does include social media an mobile, but it’s more than that, it’s about taking the news and creating fresh content around it. Google is not the only thing that likes fresh, people like it too. People like to experience content that is aligned with what is currently on their mind.
No longer should you be chasing the algo, you should be chasing people.
P.S. Apologies for the headline, I couldn’t resist.