SEO, or otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, has been said to be “dead” for years now. But is that really the case? Or should marketers be concerned?
A brief history of SEO
The rise of SEO started in mid-1990s, when people began optimising websites for search engines. With that, came the “White Hat” and “Black Hat” SEO specialists. The Black Hats, are those who used underhand methods such as manipulating keywords density or purchasing backlinks.
The death of SEO
Google was not happy with the deeds of the black hats! Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”, with the black hats SEO manipulations, people will not be getting the “most useful” or “most relevant” search results!
It did not take long before Google introduced new algorithms like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird to stop the black hats methods from working. This was the beginning of what people claim as the “death of SEO“.
SEO has evolved
Is SEO really dead though? Or are these just words of lazy marketers who have failed at SEO? Rather than dying, some says SEO has evolved, and I couldn’t agree more! To provide consumers with the most relevant results, web content, keywords and user experience (UX) are just some of the factors that plays a part in SEO. Failure is any of the factor would have resulted in poor SEO ranking.
The implications..?
The “death of SEO” as they claim – is in fact a good thing for the white hats SEO specialists. It provides a fair competition for marketers who do not have the budget *puchasing backlinks*, or for marketers who are genuinely making effort to provide consumers with the most relevant information and content.
What this means to consumer, is that their search results would be much more accurate to their needs! Who wouldn’t want that?!
It is in no doubt that Google will continuously improve their algorithm to give consumers the best search results. SEO will possibly keep changing and what marketers can do is to keep yourself up to the emerging SEO trends.
So.. Do you still think SEO dead? Share your views in the comments below!
Jamie's Blog 
Other than SEO, companies can use PPC to reach the top of the search engine? Which of you do you think is better?
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Hi Bay, I am glad you raised this question. I strongly believe for PPC to work, the base line is to have is a strong SEO, and they will work hand in hand. For example, being ranked by Google Ads without having a relevant Meta Title or Meta Description on your website will ultimately result in consumers not clicking on your website as they deem it as irrelevant.
PPC may be useful to rank our website, however, other factors such as competition or budget has to be taken into consideration. A small company with lesser budget may not have the resources to fight the bigger companies for PPC ads on Google. Of course, there are other ways around it. Such as bidding for keywords with medium level of competition yet still searched considerably by consumers. PPC is another can of worms unopened on this post, but I hope this reply will give you some insights on SEO and PPC to rank on search engine.
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I like how the article is simple and easy to understand even for non marketers like yours truly. It’ll be better to include some statistics to support your opinions though. Just like the ones natalie290396 shared! How about Jamiewrites share more about some case studies of the success/failure of am FMCG company adopting SEO As a marketing channel?
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Hi Why777, thank you for your feedback! I will take that into consideration for future posts. I did find some awesome case study here that might interest you. This blog has shared on how some ecommerce had their SEO done well! https://www.link-assistant.com/blog/ecommerce-seo/
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In my opinion, I think that SEO is not dead. Instead, it has evolved to something new. Without the start of SEO, there wouldn’t have what we have today such. In fact, an article states that “as in 2016 In 2016 companies spent 65.26 billion dollars on SEO tactics. That number swelled to 72 billion in 2018. And by 2020 it’s estimated that companies will spend a whopping 79.27 billion dollars on search engine optimization” (is SEO dead in 2019, 2019), which shows that SEO is still relevant today.
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Hi Natalie, thank you for sharing the statistics with me! It is interesting to note that the spendings on SEO has increased over the years, and will continue to increase in the next year. This insights further proves that SEO is in fact evolving and not dead!
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Wow! Interesting article, easy to understand. Thank you for helping me under SEO better. I think that SEO is not dead yet. Time to time I still hear people talking about them and company with websites are still competing to get to the top ranking in google search results. However, common internet users like us will never understand SEO fully and how it truly works or has it really evolved? But what I know for sure is, the searches are getting more & more relevant and I always manage to find the informations i’m looking for on google! Hehe! I’m extremely thankful for that if that’s really the work of white hats SEO specialist! I will be grateful if you can share more on how the new algorithms like Penguin, Panda & hummingbird stops black hat specialists from manipulating the search results! Thanks for sharing once again!
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Hi LegendaryB, thank you for your comment! I hope this post shed some light on how SEO works even for people who are not familiar with SEO. I agree that Google is doing a great job to keep search results relevant! If you are interested to know more, Moz has a very comprehensive blog post on the how the Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird algorithms works. They have also shared how SEO specialists can overcome these algorithms, the “legal” way! Here’s the link to the post: https://moz.com/blog/google-algorithm-cheat-sheet-panda-penguin-hummingbird
Hope this helps!
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