Last month in the Guardian Tim Anderson argued search engine optimisation is dead and is being replaced by social media optimisation. A bold statement, but news of SEO’s death have in this case been greatly exaggerated
The truth is that as long as search engines exist we will be able to optimise for them.
SEO is the process of optimising your website in a number of areas specifically to improve how search engines find and rank it. It’s part strategy, part alchemy, and if you rank well then you’ll see increased.
From the Google trends chart above, you can clearly see that social media search is rapidly expanding and that SEO doesn’t look to have progressed over the last few years. What this doesn’t account for is that that over the last eight years the amount of Internet users has more than doubled and social media has gone from it’s conception to being a branded content vehicle. According to HitWise, search activity overall increased by 18% between 2012 and 2013; which is estimated at an additional 400 million visitors.
Saying that SEO is irrelevant now makes the assumption that social content is more relevant and rich than that on a brand’s website, that a social community creates content that searchers want to find, and that this content both answers their search query and fairly represents the brand. Considering the investment that companies make in their brand – whether they’re small of large – this is a dangerous assumption to make.
The only part of SEO that no longer exists is black hat optimisation, which encouraged developers and marketers to stuff keywords, produce poor content or create low quality backlinks to rank on the 1st page of Google. Using black hat techniques, you were able to manipulate and trick Google into ranking your website above your competitors but since the release of Penguin, Panda and other algorithm updates Google have made, this is impossible to do without some form of penalisation; including having your website removed from its listings.
These algorithm updates from Google have made the search results more relevant and targeted. This allows you to find the information you want easier and more quickly. If you want a website to rank highly in 2013 then the only real way to do it is by not tricking Google. Your website will need to be optimised on page and you’ll need to publish regular content that is unique, relevant and high quality.
Finally, you want to have high quality back links to your content and interactions to your content through social media. Also, SMO is not a strategy without risk, as the future may bring new kinds of strategies to hijack social activities.
Rather than using one or the other you want search engine optimisation and social media interaction to directly work with each other. If people share your content on social media it is more likely to rank on search engines and if people find your content on search engines they are more likely to share it on social media.
Although some points in the Guardian column are accurate, we at underscore believe you would be missing a lot of potential customers if you neglect SEO.