SEO is dead, Long Live ...SEO?

[MktgRob]

Like Web 2.0, is there a coming SEO 2.0? Is it here already and we just don't know it. Check out the blog I found (link below) and let me, and the whole DaniWeb community, know what you think.

http://learntoduck.com/search-marketing/seo-is-dead

[stevenh]

Web 2.0 is nothing more than Social marketing. Myspace, Linkedin, Facebook...etc are all a part of the 2.0 breed of internet offerings. Social sites are a way to market yourself, your ideals, hobbies, business and just about anything else you can think of. So think of 2.0 as a state of mind rather than an actual version of something. All it is saying is that this is the newest hot thing to be involved with. It's a natural progression just as with anything else, things change.

PS... in this post he made it clear that SEO experts will have to change to meet the changing playing field, so in a sense I guess if you adjust your strategies you could figuratively call it SEO 2.0... right?

[mrandrei]

It is more accurate to say that SEO is fast evolving. It is not dead and will never be. New strategies are always born, but the same old principles in getting good ranking never change.

[snapshot]

Well, a good idea perhaps is not making the SEO world so complicated because it is not meant to be like this. You know, people tend to add complicated things to the ranking world but search engines were not created to work like sophisticated robots anyway.

[stevenh]

I must say I'm digging the way people in here actually talk, communicate and just throw out ideas. I've recently revisted the seochat forums. What a bunch of sanctimonious forum dwellers they have over there these days.

cheers

[shivanikapoor]

SEO is evolving and its a important

[redesignunit]

SEO is most important part

[MktgRob]

I was at a networking event in NYC last night (part of InternetWeekNY) and when people spoke to me about SEO and social media they seemed confused as to who it all fit together. The group was mainly non-techical business people who here Twitter and social network marketing and start engaging in these without understanding the process. The one thing I tried to communicate to them is that it is good to market your company or product with Twitter, Facebook pages, Linkedin, etc, as long as it was a subset of the overall marketing plan of the company. If not, they were going to not see the results they expected and would drop the process when there is value to be had. As with all things marketing, it is about managing expectations.

[stevenh]

It is more accurate to say that SEO is fast evolving. It is not dead and will never be. New strategies are always born, but the same old principles in getting good ranking never change.

I agree, the same primary goals will always be there for every business on the net. As long as there's business on the web there will be someone helping to get those businesses found by more people. SEO could possibly die in name and maybe it won't even be called optimizing, but the basic premise of the whole thing will always remain.

[dadrian]

Nothing is changed for us, from the seo point of view. We only have to gain, because now we have new tools to promote our sites. Like video sites, social bookmarks, twitter and so on.

[MktgRob]

I agree, the same primary goals will always be there for every business on the net. As long as there's business on the web there will be someone helping to get those businesses found by more people. SEO could possibly die in name and maybe it won't even be called optimizing, but the basic premise of the whole thing will always remain.

The fall out from all of this will be that that a lot of the companies that promote themselves as SEO experts and their only offering is SEO services are going to die out, much the same way some of the viral marketing consulants are now and the way that web design companies in the 90s did (I was one of them). If a consultant is not offering a full range of services, in a sense a one-stop shopping experience, then they will lose businesses as SEO tasks are brought in house. As the blog I originally referenced said, the companies that learned enough about SEO to bring it in house are now beginning to split SEO responsibilities among various people in their organizations. It has become a process that is acknowledged as necessary and companies will hire there own people to do it rather than a 3rd party. This will kill the SEO-only consultants. With a few exceptions, the SEO professionals who will continue to thrive are the ones who work for firms that offer the full gamut of e-services and who are targeting SMBs who do not wish to have an on-site e-marketing staff or who have a small marketing department and have made budgetary considerations for hiring long-term consultants.

[canadafred]

Bottom line, SEO will exist as long as search engines offer organic results.

[MktgRob]

No one was questioning the existence of SEO, just the form it will eventually take and where that leaves many who have positioned themselves as SEO experts. One area is specialization as I know one SEO consultant who services only legal and financial customers. As the definition and application of SEO changes, the professionals who work in that arena will have to change also.

[seolake]

I think the entire field of SEO is evolving. Social Media is more of a spoke in the complete wheel of SEO; for sure it is not the only thing that can get you rankings.

The classic case of on-page optimization, off-page link building stay as-is and Social Media compliments these to give you the recognition and visibility for your business.

[stevenh]

There are many spokes in the wheel of fortune (cough... seo) :) Hey, did you guys know that BING fully launched a couple days early? Just wanted to throw that out, I forgot to mention it yesterday.

[canadafred]

Hey, did you guys know that BING fully launched a couple days early? Just wanted to throw that out, I forgot to mention it yesterday.

Ya, had a another look at it yesterday and performed a couple of my standard test searches and was amazed at the results it provided (I am usually easily impressed with practically anything Microsoft launches in an attempt to uncrown Google).

I was, however, astonished to find some strange things happening simultaneously such as some of the descriptions in the results were using the DMOZ description (DMOZ being proprietary to Google raises the question as to what datapools Bing is generating it's search results from or, even odder, if Microsoft and Google are somehow teaming up search results [that could be a good thing]).