Is SEO dying? Nope, but you better have social as well.

Marketing Over Coffee - John Wall and Chris Penn
Marketing Over Coffee – John Wall and Chris Penn

The old way of doing SEO – keywords, meta description, proper URL set-up, etc… which you can find all about on seomoz.org is great and you should be doing it but it’s not enough anymore.

If you listen to the guys at Marketing Over Coffee (Christopher S. Penn and John Wall – love these guys), they are saying it’s not enough anymore. You need to have social as part of the mix. You need a network of people that will spread your message along.

The other interesting tidbit is how Google is changing search for more localization. So if you are national, like we are national, then we might not rank for local searches (which Google is starting to default to).

Here’s a test to make sure you are ranking for the keywords you want?

First, go to Google. Then log out. You don’t want it tracking you.

Next, change the location. South Bend and Granger and Mishawaka are probably going to pull in Notre Dame due to location.

Change your location to Chicago, then do the search. See what comes back. Make sure you don’t click on anything. Just look the page over.

Then change your location again. Maybe this time to New York. Then search again.

Is your website coming up? If not, then you need to look at how your website is working (does it use the best SEO practices) and then look at your social network. Are you connecting with the right people?

SEO is always changing but now social is a big part of it as well. What do you think about this?


Comments

12 responses to “Is SEO dying? Nope, but you better have social as well.”

  1. Napoleon Suarez Avatar
    Napoleon Suarez

    Good points here, Don. I have been in the SEO field for over 3 years now and the pace that things are changing is neck breaking. On average, Google updates its algorithm more than once/day. That said, some tactics that worked a year ago may hurt a website.

    Lastly here is a link to a tool that can help you search unpersonalized so that you don’t have to log in/out of G when you want to spot check rankings. I used it for Firefox, but other options are available. Keep writing!!!

    http://yoast.com/tools/seo/disable-personalized-search-plugin/

    1. Don Schindler Avatar
      Don Schindler

      Thanks for the tool, Napoleon.

  2. Great article! Have you ever considered writing about how consumer behavior is shifting to doing product searches directly on marketplaces like Amazon and away from Google? Check out a video about it on http://www.marketplaceoptimization.com. Let me know if you want to do an interview or a collaboration!

    Thanks!

  3. This is interesting I believe that each company, dealing with marketing, is aware of these new influences in the SEO and has already prepared for the new requirements of this business, yet thanks for the valuable information!

  4. Having just added SEO to our array of services, I’ve been researching more SEO blogs. This is a great post that puts things into perspective. Logging in from different locations and searching for your website is a great measuring stick to your business! Thanks for the tips, will definitely bookmark!

  5. I agree… But social media takes a lot of time. Do you know any good people to outsource the social presence?

    1. Don Schindler Avatar
      Don Schindler

      Oro, you should never outsource your social media presence. If you don’t have time to do it, at least do the listening. Social Media is your customer service and your voice online. If it is handled by an outside source, they won’t be as passionate or knowledgeable about what you are communicating.

  6. I absolutely agree with integration of social media into seo strategy, but google visitors make still much more conversions than social media visitors, you should remember that. Anyway, thanks for article.

  7. I use SEO Book’s rank checker extension for FireFox to check for my rankings. And lately, i have definitely seen the increasing benefits of social sharing. Add some share buttons (such as ShareThis) to your site and your link building does itself if you have quality content!

  8. Great post Don.
    Social media plays a major part in the search engine rankings nowadays and will begin to play a larger role as Google+ integrates deeper and deeper into the SERPs.
    It makes sense though, if something is worth people’s attention, people will share it, like it , mention it, whatever.
    I handle SEO Management and PPC management here in Fort Wayne and see social as being one of the largest parts of getting qualified traffic to our clients sites.
    Thanks for the post!

  9. Seo never die. .

  10. Seo will never fade away.The thing is you have to do according to proper webmaster guidelines.Quality content and relevant link will always be there.
    Thanks
    http://www.ecelticseo.com/seo-services/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *