A recent study by Clutch showed that SEO was the least popular digital marketing channel, stating only 44% of businesses are spending money on SEO.
SEO has radically changed over the course of a few years.
Google’s algorithm increased from 1,653 in 2016 and to 3,234 in 2018.
That’s about a total of 9 algorithm changes per day, which says that it is not possible for SEO to manipulate Google nowadays.
So in a sense what many people traditionally see as an SEO strategy is now dead – digital marketers now have to approach their organic search in a completely different way.
Why do people think SEO is dead?
Let’s discuss some data.
On Google, there are around 2 trillion searches per year. That is roughly around 5.6 billion searches per day right?
Take an example, when we type “What is SEO?” on Google, here are the results…
There is around 62, 70, 00,000 results on Google to explain it & also provide you with results.
Its simple economics. When supply is higher than the demand, the product has lesser value!
On top of that, Google is turning into an answer engine in which they are answering people’s questions without them having to go to a website.
This trend is becoming widely popular. And due to this, the traffic that Google drives to organic listings or SEO results is decreasing day by day.
Why Organic CTRs are falling?
Google has been making drastic changes in SERP in recent years, leading people to think that there is no future with SEO.
Nowadays, more than 50% of the search takes place without a click being generated.
Therefore, SEO is unable to deliver lead generation effectively. These changes have not been very favorable for SEO.
Getting the number 1 position has become irrelevant right now, position 0 is the new benchmark. Content is now more important than ever before with the likes of voice search and featured snippets now becoming the norm rather than the exception.
What role does paid media have in this?
While the 0 position is the target of all media houses in the SERP result, it is not that easy.
The position is followed up by a “Google Answer Box” and/or a knowledge panel. There are some factors which will determine your position:
- Excellent on-page content
- High-value links off the page
- A good dash of the best technical SEO thrown
So you see, SEO is only a small part of digital marketing. With Google algorithm becoming more vicious these days tactics that might have worked before is incompetent right now.
Sites can literally disappear from the page without warning if it doesn’t fulfill the requirement. But we also need to consider social media referrals, brand mentions in industry publications, influencer marketing, traditional offline marketing, and even word of mouth.
How does Google now work?
Google is catching every small detail of your website.
As well as social media.
Google is crawling your social media accounts and no doubt this also helps Google to give you little ranking.
So, now you understand why we stress so hard on social media marketing in our other blogs!
Let’s give you an example:
Look at these two pictures-
The second picture is after 40 to 45 minutes from the first picture.
Google is trying to give the users an amazing user experience. So all the sits which would only rank because of enormous backlinking, SEO metrics, & keyword density is becoming irrelevant now.
So, even if you are creating countless backlinks for your website, if your user is not happy with the results, your site is bound to go down!
Google prefers brand
As your brand is growing automatically your page will rank higher.
The importance of niche-specific websites are a necessity to make a prominence in the market.
Quite obviously, you cannot rank for everything you do.
There are many sites that got a red alert from Google itself due to generalized content.
Quite popular was the site About.com, which got red alert due to a non-specific niche based website.
When they changed their website it got a growth revenue of 140%.
How to keep your SEO strategy alive?
SEO is not dead, it is changing like many other digital strategies.
In many ways, in order to optimize your website for Google, you need to optimize it like you would a business.
The main focus is to be relevant & deliver satisfactory search results.
Focus on Google my Business
SEO strategy can be placed anywhere you can place information about your company on Google.
Having an active GMB account will help your site to be more likely to appear in these results, and provide searchers with more information when they arrive on a SERP.
The importance of content
Content can be blogs, website content, videos, case studies, guides, infographics & so on.
Look, basically people use Google when they “want” something.
So just be their “want”.
Increase your content marketing. The more you invest in keyword specific relevant content, the more you are generating traffic.
Which will give you the “zero” position!
The future lies in personalization
Have you ever noticed that your search results generally differ from your friends?
It is because Google is trying to personalize results for you.
Wherever you go using your phone, especially the Android phone, Google is using that information to get tailored information for you.
So take a cue from Google. Customize your marketing strategy according to your audiences.
If you focus on personalize your experience to your users, your site will automatically rank better.
SEO is still alive, it is going through some major changes.
If you need any assistance regarding your SEO for your website, Contact Us at Skyram Technologies. We will provide you with a perfectly planned SEO strategy for your business.
Also, for more such blogs, read here!
