Since at least 2003, I’ve been hearing the claims that SEO is dead. I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t been in this game forever; I’ve only been coding, optimizing, and blogging since 2005. So, before I ever started working on the web in any sort of professional capacity, people were claiming that Search Engine Optimization was dead. Every year, I’ll see buzz around a couple of posts and people will ask me “Why do you do SEO if so-and-so says SEO is dead (or dying)”.

Well, the reason I do SEO is because SEO isn’t dead; it’s alive as it ever was. Now, I know I’m not saying anything new here. For every person who says that “SEO is dead”, you’ll see the same number retort that “SEO is alive and well”. However, this post is simply indented to give you some insight into why I, personally, think SEO isn’t dead and that it will, in fact, be healthy and alive for the foreseeable future.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. Therefore, the claim that SEO is dead supposes that search engines have reached a level of sophistication where their spiders can completely crawl any website’s content and flawlessly match that content to user queries entered into their search engine. This assumes that any initiatives taken by webmasters to assist indexing and ranking are utterly futile. We know that this is not the case.

Search engines are still evolving and, with the constant adoption of newer web technologies and standards by the webmasters who create the web, they’ll keep evolving. The SEO’s job is to help search engines understand the mess of code that make up the sites we work on. I’ve seen sites built entirely in Flash that if not for SEO would be utterly uncrawlable. I’ve had to resolve an issue with a site’s age gateway that blocked all search spiders along with the underage crowd. I’ve worked on a hundreds of sites where the tactful use of semantic HTML markup let their pages break onto page one of the SERPs. Sure, a lot of issues that SEO addresses would be non-existent if all developers followed documented web-coding standards (a man can dream), but there are still a host of strategies and tools that SEOs use on a daily basis that can make all the difference between page three and position #1.

Without SEO

I believe that many of the claims of SEOs demise stem from the (seemingly) age-old mantra that “content is king”. This is true and no one can argue it. The naysayers hold that good content is all that’s needed for success with the search engines; good content is extremely likely to be shared, which results in backlinks to the site, which in turn leads to massive gains in search engine rankings. If that’s all that’s required, why doesn’t every webmaster simply crank out “good content” and skyrocket to the top of the SERPs? Because not all webmasters are capable of creating good content and not all brands have the time and budget to work on producing engaging, shareable content. Furthermore, the web is full of good content already and SEO is often required to tip the scales in a battle between two pieces of equally good content.

This is the way I see it: your content will make or break your site (there absolutely must be some reason for users to link to you) and search engines will follow the links to your content to hopefully award you with precious, precious ranking. However, once the link juice starts flowing, all the SEO’s hard work comes to fruition. Optimized code and high site speed allow search engines to get in quickly and find that valuable content; streamlined site architecture allows a percentage of that link juice to flow though the site and boost the rankings of other pages as well; optimized page titles and semantic markup further demonstrate the relevancy of that page for targeted keywords; and well-crafted meta descriptions appear in the SERPs, fostering increased click-throughs, site interaction, and ROI for the site owner. The benefits of on-site SEO work are huge.

With SEO

And don’t forget that more often than not, an SEO engaged on a site will have a large hand in creating that “good content” that may have otherwise gone uncreated.

I also think that many of those who are so ready to pronounce the death of Search Engine Optimization are simply frustrated SEOs who once thrived off of gaming the system. Not too long ago, you could win the SEO game by stuffing keywords into your code, creating spammy (keyword stuffed) content, leveraging irrelevant link exchanges, getting involved in link farms, cloaking keywords, and the list goes on and on. These black-hat SEOs were willing to do anything as long as it resulted in a top spot in the SERPs and some of them were quite successful. However, search engines are becoming smarter year after year; from the above list of tactics, none are relevant and useful today because search engines have caught on and have devalued them. Just recently, Google has devalued the weight given to content farms who build out mass amounts of low quality content in an effort to dominate search results. I strongly believe that many people believe SEO is dead because it’s getting harder and harder to make quick wins with minimal effort.

Google and Bing are now using social signals in search, from incorporating Facebook and Twitter data to Google’s +1 feature. Some self-proclaimed gurus and “SEM Ninjas” as saying that this means SEO is dead; I don’t think these developments signal the death of SEO either. “Social signal building” will simply become a part of a well-rounded SEO strategy. Success in this area will come from understanding what types of content are conducive to social sharing and liking. Being successful here will rely on the same approach as modern link building in an effort to enhance social signals; create great content that people want to link to and recommend. Obviously, you can’t pay money to get easy likes or submit your site to a “like directory”, but applying those tactics in the link building arena is on its way out anyway. Assuming that search engines move away from links and focus entirely on social signals, the theory behind SEO strategy would still be the same; make your site accessible, provide a great user experience, and create content that people naturally want to share.

In considering the future of SEO and social signals, people are now asking, “Why ask search engines if you can ask your friends?” The thing to remember here is that it’s all the same. Whether you’re getting your recommendations from a non-social algorithm or your circle of friends, you’re still querying a search engine to get that information. It’s simply the focus of the engine’s algorithm that’s changing. Webmasters will still need to understand and optimize for that algorithm if they truly want to leverage the power of organic traffic generation.

SEO is alive and still viable, yet constantly evolving. Sure, content is (and has been) king and the same tricks that fooled search engines yesterday don’t work today, but true SEO that focuses on helping site owners and webmasters build great content, increase accessibility and site performance, and allow users to really find what they’re looking for out on the web will never be dead.

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