For a long time now (maybe years), there’s a consistently annoying rumor being repeated: That SEO is dead. I’d like to weigh in on this speculation and explain why it’s not so.
First and foremost, this very site still continues to accrue 90% of all it’s traffic via search engines through SEO and I even make new sites today which also focus on this strategy and still get traffic, following the same techniques I’ve been using for years. Here’s an example of a site I have revolving around Spartan Races (it’s a sport):
And while I will explain how I’m doing it in spite of these rumors, in this article, I want to FIRST give the opposing side some credit, and explain why they are saying this and/or feeling this is the case.
- I will give 7 reasons to show what they are saying is true. But…
- I will also provide 7 opposing reasons right after as to why they are wrong.
Is SEO really dead? Here’s 7 pieces of evidence to suggest so:
1) There are more bloggers and people practicing search engine optimization.
And they are chasing the same market of people as well as chasing the same keyword phrases. Since there isn’t enough space on Google to occupy the first 10 spots for all these, even the most experienced, hard working person still can’t make it to the top page. This is indeed sometimes the case (too much competition basically). And if you reach the first page eventually, the heat from the keyword has died down and not many people look for it (it happens a lot).
2) The SEO game has gotten a lot less easier.
Before you could find some high authority sites like article directories or post on big sites like Digg, Quora, write a small blog with a few pages (micro niches) and so forth and get easy rankings. Today, these avenues are closed and the person who seeks to get those high rankings again, needs to put an effort into content creation on their site (which runs them into problem #1 above).
3) Tools that used to help you boost your rankings in search engines are being locked down.
So the “cheats” people used to use to trick search engines are basically all but dead.
4) Marketers that are saying the phrase “SEO is dead” are also using this belief to leverage the panic.
Especially among people to gain a list that they can sell to. So when they tell people how hard it is to make it in the business, but offer their special training and products to solve the problem, suddenly they gain a new audience. One of the best ways to sell to a niche audience is to scare them into buying your program/services.
5) A lot of guru marketers have been shifting AWAY from SEO as of late.
And focusing on paid traffic such as FB ads, social network marketing, Adwords, YouTube marketing, list building and anything but SEO, which leads a lot of people to believe that it is no longer something that can be leveraged and that the “new thing” is in the things taught by the new age online marketers.
Case point, one of the marketers I have high respect for, Alex Becker is also staying away from it, and he is basically saying many of the things I am in this con section, so he shifted away from it. But this wasn’t because the industry is “dead”, it’s because it’s gotten harder.
6) The length it takes a site to reach high rankings can often be very hard for people to wait on.
Even if you blog consistently, you’re still looking at a few months of Google dancing and ranking fluctuations before you start getting consistent visitors. To many people, this is simply too much time wasted (although I’d argue it’s not).
7) Because there are so many people doing this stuff now, and the fact there is “less space” for occupying the first page.
Many marketers believe their time is better spent with paid advertising, working on the newer, less occupied spaces such as social networks and building out their lists. They definitely have a point, but a lot of the people who say and do this stuff, already have established businesses they can move into another field. For the beginner, this is simply not the case though, they can’t just switch to a new marketing platform and make quick money…
7 pieces of evidence that suggest SEO isn’t dead:
1) Competition isn’t as high as you think it is.
I’ve written about this when I talked about the make money online niche and while it is indeed true that there’s a lot of people scrambling to occupy those first 10 positions on the first page, the fact that it’s become more difficult to reach has pushed many away from it. I’ve said this has actually opened up a lot new space, not less.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly thrilled when I write a new piece of content and see a ton of make money online blogs occupying the first 10 positions, but I squeeze in there almost always and that’s because…
2) Authority blogs are what ensures that SEO stays alive for you.
And better yet, keeps making you more and more money. Years ago, a site with just 5-10 pages could get away with ranking high. Today, since these blogs are plentiful, the standards have rose. Now a blog with 50+ pages and posts is going to outrank those low quality ones. Yes I know the idea of writing 50+ blog posts sounds daunting, but trust me, it’s worth it.
Free and relevant traffic is still the best traffic you can get because you have EVERYTHING to gain from it. And consider that once you reach the first positions, you can just let the free traffic flow in. For this to happen, you first need to go through the beginning stages of getting an authority blog set up.
3) Search traffic has not dropped, it’s risen.
From 2 billion to 3+ billion in a matter of years. That’s how many people browse the internet. Because there are more users on the internet, naturally a higher proportion of them look for stuff online and while the search results have evolved (now you see maps, shop stores, ect…), there’s still a TON of people and even more so, looking at personal blog sites for answers to questions on topics and product reviews.
4) Search traffic is still FREE traffic and if nothing else.
This should be the number 1 reason you put in the hard work to make your blog stand out. It takes a lot of work to reach that authority stage yes, but let me tell you
5) It’s not as difficult as you think.
Yes 50 blog posts sounds like a lot, but it’s a recommended standard to strive for. The truth though is that I’ve gotten new sites I’ve made with much less rank and rake in traffic faster. And the key there was that the sites were in smaller niches.
For example:
Here’s a successful niche site I made on Spartan Races and similar type things. Within a year and with a little under 50 blog posts, it is now accumulating 100+ visits a day.
Here’s another niche site on drones where in just under 40 blog posts I accumulated 50+ visitors a day.
And I have sites with LESS content which still get daily search traffic. Granted, it’s not a lot, but what matters is that results start happening sooner than you think. Yes it can take months to get good traffic, but you can get it before and a BIG part of that is 3 things:
6) New keyword phrases for every big niche are constantly coming out to the market.
I don’t care whether you’re in weight loss, dieting, make money online, or other niches, if it’s profitable, you can bet there’s a demand for new products and topics to come out in the industry and naturally those things gravitate to search engines, which all come with their own, new search phrases you can target and rank for. Meaning your ability to keep up with new stuff coming out in each niche market is constantly there and constantly growing, so you can keep growing your site through this evergreen demand.
Example: How many new products come out to the weight loss market every year? Who can keep count right? But we all know that they come out in plethora amounts, every single time. Each time they come out, you will have an audience searching for info on them, on guess what…Google. So every time something new comes out to the market, it offers a new window of keyword opportunity to pounce upon, write on, and rank for.
7) Speaking of keywords.
If you know how to find profitable keywords and leverage tip #6, you will NEVER run out of new keyword ideas. This will cause you to keep writing, to keep growing your blog, to keep growing the site’s authority and you WILL get more traffic.
Yes it is true that certain keywords “die out” and this is because certain topics and products, which have their own keywords eventually fizzle out, it’s normal, but new ones are constantly coming out and you should absolutely be chasing the new ones and adding them to your blog. This will keep it’s survival going and growing.
Furthermore, whatever other blog posts you had before it, even if they don’t have traction
My advice for 2 groups: Intermediate and beginner SEO people.
Before I give you my advice, let me make something clear:
I do SEO and have done it for over 10 years. I still do it, so it begs the question of why I’d keep bothering with it, if it were really dead. The answer is that it’s not.
- Has it changed? Yes.
- Has it gotten harder? It depends on the niche.
- Is it really better to avoid SEO and go somewhere else? I would say no, if you do it right, there’s a lot of opportunity.
- Is the field of success smaller than it was before? I would say absolutely not.
I’d even argue there’s more open doors today than there was before. People have just gotten lazier about evolving their style of content and/or the people they listen to have gotten lazier about updating their advice (I would know, I was one of the complacent people) and as a result, when the rules/standards evolved, they did not and once the rankings didn’t keep up with their outdated techniques, they claimed that SEO was dead…
If you’re an intermediate in the SEO world and struggling, do this:
Follow these basic 5 tips and you’re going to do great:
1) For the intermediate people, I also have additional resources for you to read if you’re interested in more info on the above 5 tips:
2) Second, you gotta know why niche marketing is the way to go in the SEO world. Here’s how to find your niche.
3) Second, you have to know about those keywords, the opportunities pop up all the time and more keywords than you can imagine have low competition, that would be perfect to use on your site and write content on it. If you’re stuck on that, here is a post on what to blog about.
4) If you want to know how many words to write in a blog, the answer is in that link.
5) Don’t know if what you’re writing is high quality content? Here’s how you can measure the quality of your content.
Now tips for SEO beginners:
If any part of the 5 tips I gave above was confusing to you, then you need to start fresh with a program that’ll teach you how to start a fresh blog and grow it in the SEO department. This Wealthy Affiliate program will do that.
I know with all the rumors swirling about this industry, that the last thing you’d probably consider doing is starting a blog, but as I’ve pointed out, having gotten involved in multiple new sites in the past year or two and growing them using only SEO methods, I’m telling you guys, you can do it too, no matter if you have a blog or are just starting one.
But anyway, back to my point, the program I recommend to you is MOST definitely going to take you through that process and make it simple to do. Here it is:
Let me share one final SEO success story with you:
In 2017, I was enjoying massive success on this site. I was getting a lot of traffic daily, making a lot of sales, but the problem was that I didn’t stay consistent and fizzled out my blogging performance. As a result, I lost about 60% of my traffic. Going from getting 800-1,000 visits a day, I was getting under 200.
But starting in late Feb of 2018, I started working hard on my blog and published new content daily. This has made my blog slowly come back and now from the under 200 it was getting, it was slowly climbing to over 300-400 daily, nearly double it’s traffic from before. And it the website made a lot last year.
And considering this blog is more popular in the fall and winter seasons, this rise, while small is still going to get higher once September hits but the point is that new blogging efforts picked up steam.
If this industry were truly dead, and the above 7 points that point to it being so were real, how was I still able to use it to rekindle my rankings/traffic?
If the industry were dead, how could I make all the sites I have, which I grew with organic methods?
The answer is I wouldn’t be able to, but I have and so SEO is not dead.
I won’t lie, this game is tough and you have to be ready and able to write a lot, but to this day, the benefits this industry holds in my opinion is one of the best if you wish to reach massive success in your own financial life.
But let me end this hear because I want to discuss this SEO topic with you guys. What do you all think? Are you more for the 7 points for this theory or the 7 points against it?
Wow I just keep learning more and more about SEO everyday. A very informative article. I too have heard the SEO is dead rumor for many years,yet it is still what drives Google and Bing.
Great content is the key that a lot of people do not want to do because it is a lot of work which in turn is what I believe the scammers thrive on and are the ones spreading the rumors about SEO being dead. What do you think?
Yep, I agree, I even said it in the article where I made my 4th point. There are people capitalizing on the fear of this rumor so it’s much easier to sell products that way.
On the topic of ranking on Google and SEO I believe the niche you’ve chosen is important as well. You said that you could get a decent amount of traffic with 50+ blog posts but my blog in the make money online niche with 100+ posts barely gets 50 visitors a day. I think the threshold really depends on which niche you choose.
That is definitely a factor Lucas, and I have a whole article on the make money online niche itself and the saturation topic that surrounds it (here). However, since we’re on this subject, let me go even deeper and into the things you cited such as your site having 100+ posts and not getting a lot of traffic.
I think in your case, there is more to this than just the number of blog post, it also depends on the keyword competition, the product reviews you do, the actual topics and products you are reviewing and how closely related they are to the make money online niche topic.
If these are as narrow as can be, you should be getting more traffic. I would focus on being as specific as possible when you write content on your site, meaning, focus on topics and products that are tied directly to the topic of making money online.
Thank you for laying down the pro’s and cons about SEO. It’s good to read that it’s important to keep filling a website with quality content. The beginning can be overwhelming. To get to 50 posts will take me a long time, but seeing what it can do in the long run is motivating.
Hi Bianca, you are right. For people who HAVE seen the benefits of SEO, getting to 50+ posts is much easier the second time around (or third and up). It’s people who are new or who have never experienced this stuff before that have the hardest time reaching that point.
I’m currently working on a new website in a very competitive niche market and after about 10 posts, I already started seeing way more organic results than I thought, SEO is alive.
Great post! So much of this information is relevant to me right now, and it’s what I needed to hear. I am a newcomer affiliate marketer – I just started two months ago. SEO seems kind of daunting to me at this point. My biggest concern has been whether or not I am actually doing it right.
50+ posts does seem like a lot, but I can definitely see the value in doing it – beyond just getting ahead of the curb, I am sure it really will hone my skills as a writer to get that much daily practice, etc..
Anyways, thank you for your advice. I will definitely be back for more!
Best,
Matthew
Hi Mathew, as someone who once started in this industry too, I also felt that same worry you described. What I can tell you is that if you have a system like Wealthy Affiliate showing you the blueprint of SEO, and you are following it, then you don’t need to worry so much about if the path you’re going in is right, you’ll know it to be right because they teach you the right way to do it.
Thanks for giving me more confidence that seo is not dead. When I first started out I too wondered if trying to rank in the search engines was even worth it, since there’s so many people I have to compete against.
But like you said, MANY people are not willing to write 50+ blog posts so that Google will start to rank their websites. And also there’s new keywords and products appearing every day that you can jump on and gain easy rankings.
So I will continue to keep on writing until I can start to get that high quality free traffic to my site. One quick question though…
Is it true that if you stop blogging consistently (like you did) — that it takes on average about 3 months of regular blogging for your traffic to pick back up?
It’s hard to give a definitive answer here Michael. The basic answers are that yes, if you stop blogging, then your rankings/traffic will slowly decline. And it is also true that if you start re-blogging, that it will pick up again.
But the pace at which your rankings/traffic drop and rise when you start up again depend on the existing keywords you rank for and how much NEW competition comes into them during your time of not blogging as much.
For example…
If you rank high for product reviews that are popular and get traffic, overtime that product may die out and/or other competition might come in, pushing your ranking down. If this happens for multiple cases, then obviously, your traffic will decline.
If you rank well for more evergreen keyword topics that generally get a consistent search on Google, then you’ll probably maintain a good traffic influx for a long time to come, BUT you will always have that competition creeping in no matter what, so to maintain your superiority will require that you keep actively blogging.
Hi Vitaliy,
You make some really good points. This is great news for me as SEO is what the growth of my site is dependent on. I tried the paid advertising route and got tremendous traffic. But that did not result in purchases. With SEO and a lot less traffic, my visitors are actually making purchases.
SEO brings in higher quality traffic. Traffic that comes back. And traffic that eventually makes purchases. Paid advertising brings people to a site once, but not necessarily to come back and buy. Although, I suppose it depends on the quality of your site. Thanks for the great insights.
Ed
Hi Ed, my experience with paid ads has been a bit different. While I actually get A LOT more traffic through SEO on my sites, when it comes to paid ads, a big part of making it work is bringing in the most highly targeted traffic you can possibly target.
For example:
If you write ads and target keywords for broad terms or how to topics on your site you will likely not get the buyer traffic, whereas if you were targeting a keyword like a product name, you’d likely get the audience interested in buying it.
I believe based on what you said, that this is the reason why the paid traffic route did not work for you.
Hey Vitaliy,
Thanks for a very detailed and enlightening post. I, too, believe that SEO is not dead, it is simply harder than before. And yes, it does depend on the niche and the keywords you choose. Thank you for the 7 points and the advice. I will try to follow it as much as I can.
Marios
Hi Marios, while I did list 7 points, do note that great content is what drives everything else in the SEO world, so focus your abilities on producing that.
Hey Vitaliy,
Thanks for putting together this great resource. I must personally agree with you that I don’t believe SEO is dead or going anywhere soon. While it is much more competitive now than it has been in the past, I think there’s still more than enough room for people who are willing to create quality content to succeed with SEO.
Also, I believe that while paying for advertising space on platforms such as AdWords or Facebook Ads is a great way to get a surge of traffic much faster than SEO, the argument could be made that it’s not going to be as profitable as SEO over the long haul.
I say this because as more people leave SEO due to it being “too competitive” and move over to paid advertising platforms, the cost of those platforms is going to continue to climb due to competition. So, three years from now it will be almost impossible to make a profit on paid platforms because people will be spending so much money just to show up.
Instead, if people spend their time providing quality content and optimizing SEO the right way, three years from now that content will still be ranking and earning money while those who have abandoned SEO now for paid advertising may be crawling back to an even more competitive arena in the future.
What do you think about my hypothesis? Do you think that paid traffic methods are ultimately going to become so competitive that they will be too expensive for people to earn a profit with?
Also, do you think a newcomer to SEO could be successful by only investing two or three hours every day? Personally, I do, but I’d love to hear your opinion on it. Thanks again for the great write up and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Cheers,
Tony
Hi Tony, I appreciate this comment and the thoughts you put into what you wrote. Regarding your thoughts on paid traffic and SEO, I generally agree, but having been involved in both aspects of the game for so long, I’ve seen these platforms grow, become more competitive and yes more pricey to be involved with.
However, I was still able to succeed in SEO and when it came to paid ads (with which I only use Bing for now), I was still able to apply the same principals to get low cost ads every time.
I absolutely believe in using both options (SEO and paid ads) and even if you are involved in a niche topic where you use paid ads to get traffic, leads and sales, and there is no other way to do it but pay more, I’d still consider doing it if you are experienced enough and know how to get the relevant visitor to your site and then make them convert.
This is something that was made quite clear to me while watching people like Alex Becker speak in great length about how he spends a lot on leads, but because he has his sales funnel/s down, he makes it all back and more. This type of mindset has helped people like him become more successful and it’s inspired me to take my own chances.
Yet despite those risks, I absolutely agree with what you say regarding people establishing their SEO presence NOW and several years down the line when more competition creeps in, that the site you make and establish now in search engines will stand above them all.
I’m definitely for the 7 points that SEO is not dead. SEO and Google just treat some stuff differently is all. Google doesn’t want bad information on the front page so they may not rank you if you’re just blabbering with unhelpful/boring content. The people who are providing the browsers with exactly what they’re looking for are more likely to end up on the first page.
Even if you find a keyword with a competition of 0. you may not be ranked at all if your content sucks or if you made certain mistakes like too many ads or external links for example. Lots of good info. I can use it. Thanks.
Agreed!
Hi Vitaliy,
What a great article, thank you for sharing it. I loved that you started out with the cons for SEO marketing because I have heard those same excuses many times and sometimes it is easy to believe it is true.
And just as you say, there was a time a few years ago when it seemed like you only had to post 200-400 words once or twice a week to get a high ranking with Google. Now, that doesn’t seem so true, it takes a lot more content and a lot more patience.
I was very inspired by your story of your successful blog that went down to just 200 viewers because you stopped writing but once you decided to start it up again and put the work into it, it began to churn again. This is very timely for me as sometimes I feel as if SEO is not working for me but if I give it time, it usually does. Thank you again for a very informative post that was great to read!
Yeah once you start cranking out the content, you WILL have to get new traffic, that’s just how this all works 🙂
Hello Vitaliy,
Great article on the status of SEO. I totally agree with you, SEO is not dead because I am still getting a decent amount of traffic organically on a daily basis.
I think the hardest part is to stay consistent while having minimal results at first. The thing I noticed about SEO is that it takes many months before you start getting the Google love. So the impatient ones end up giving up and claiming that SEO is dead.
Cheers,
Eric
This is true Eric, impatience is a leading cause of people giving up on SEO and there’s people out there who sell their programs preaching and making people think it’s a quick process, feeding people these lies. People need to know that SEO is a slow process, but it’s one that’s well worth it. Anyone who succeeds with SEO will tell you it’s worth it.
Hi Vitaliy, what a great article. I really enjoyed reading it. I’ve recently been working on my own blog, and I agree that sometimes it feels like tilting at windmills. But then again I read success stories and blogs like yours and I get motivated to keep working and keep pushing.
At the time of writing this comment I have published about 40 posts on my blog within roughly four months. That isn’t exactly one blog per day (not even close) but it is hard for me to do more while also working my 9-to-5-job. Anyways, thank you so much for this very well written, easy to read guide! I really enjoyed reading it!
Thanks, Chris
Hi Chris, trust me, the effort you’re putting into your blog now is actually way better than most people put in. 10 blogs a month is a good pace to maintain considering you have a full time job to focus on.
But either way, this process is going to pay off for you, and I strongly believe it’ll happen very soon (perhaps in a few weeks). Usually by around 6 months or less, a blog does start seeing a boom in traffic.
If you have questions regarding your blog, let me know about it’s niche and if you’re doing keyword targeting for it. I’d love to see your blog do well in SEO and profits.
I often wonder about the second point you’ve covered in the article above – do several-page niche blogs exist any longer and how hard is it for them to rank well?
I’ve certainly seen a change by Google over the last 3 to 4 years on how they gauge regular content – they seem to only want to keep tabs on those who post new content at least once a month.
Also, what are your views on article marketing these days – I tend to think it’s a rotten way to get backlinks and search engines are wise to it?
Hi Chris, it all really comes down to the niche. What you are referring to is micro niche blogs (few pages), and there are circumstances (rare) when they do rank high on Google, however that depends on the actual niche and how noncompetitive it is, meaning if there’s hardly any other blogs in the same niche, you’ll likely get ranked high and quickly.
For example, if you have a micro niche blog on something like reviewing books on quantum physics, there will likely be a very small audience in this niche (considering how tough this subject is, thus it doesn’t attract a lot of people) and so you’d probably be able to rank a blog high with just 10 pages or so.
I’ve seen this work, but at the same time, micro niche blogs tend to have a small spending crowd, so you probably won’t make too much money in it.
Regarding article marketing, yes it’s pretty dead right now and if people try building backlinks through it by writing articles on directories and linking them back to their site/blog, they’ll likely get no value or SEO points out of it.
Very interesting article and great arguments about why SEO is not dead. Always interesting to read your points of view and to read about your experiences.
I agree and can see on my own websites that it definitely still pays off to work with SEO. The traffic you get from it is highly relevant, and it can really add up, if you are consistent. Thanks for another great article.
Mike
Hi Michkael! The fact that you’re personally seeing results from your own SEO efforts just disproves that annoying rumor already 🙂
I’ve also heard that “SEO is dead” phrase numerous times. But if SEO really was dead, it would put some business owners and especially Google out of business because, without quality content indexed on page 1, a lot of folks would stop using the search engine.
Yeah sure, there are ads, but a huge chunk of Google’s visitors are there for “organic” listings, in my opinion. Personally, I think when an Internet Marketing strategy seems too difficult and complex for some folks, they tend to make up all kinds of excuses to justify why they aren’t successful.
As a blogger myself – YES, it takes a TON of hard work and sometimes you feel like throwing in the towel when rankings aren’t rising quick enough, and there’s little traffic bringing in little to no income.
But it’s all about pushing forward, being patient and giving a site time to mature before you start getting any traction. As you’ve also proved, SEO definitely works and it’s here to stay, regardless of what people are saying.
Neil
Fantastic point about Google’s model being reliant on SEO for it’s success. In fact, a HUGE chunk of all search traffic browses Google and clicks on it’s organic listings, even when there are ads. This provides Google with the incentive to keep the SEO engine going.
Hi Vitaliy,
Very interesting article and timely for me to read because my own SEO efforts clearly suck because the traffic to my site has been abysmal. I have written over 60 posts for my site.
The one thing you have stressed is to write articles over 1,500 words and daily? Coming up with daily topics containing 1,500 words or more seems to me to be an almost impossible task. Do you have any advice as to how I can up my content?
Hi Howard, I actually have a good article that’ll help you with this problem of content creation. Here it is. I faced the same problems on my site/s before.
Besides the 1,500 words which I do recommend writing, the other question I have is regarding you existing content. The 60 articles you said you wrote, were they all chasing keywords that were relevant to one niche?
Great article on why SEO is not dead as some would want you to believe. Of course people who are afraid of competition would want to promote the false idea that SEO is dead so they can keep all the traffic for themselves!
I really appreciate that you outline some tips for beginners like me but also for intermediate SEOers as well. I think persistence is a big part of being successful. I haven’t had much success with my niche website yet but I’ve only been at it for a short time now and I just keep pushing on creating content with the belief that it will eventually payoff. Thanks again for your insight!
No problem Jon! You are welcome to ask me any questions about your current site, I’d be happy to let you know if you’re headed in the right direction and if not, on what to do.
Great insights into why SEO is still working. I have little traffic on my site, but I trust SEO as well because I have read so much about it lately and so many people who are successful with it.
What I find interesting though is that you say one should write at least once daily. No idea how that would work.
I myself use Google for so many things and I usually use long keyword phrases, and often I have come to no answers. So that makes your point clear that SEO is not dead. By finding the longtail keywords, there is so much to write about in every niche.
Thanks for sharing these 7 points.
Oscar
Hi Oscar, yes, very often the results you get from Google aren’t the best and if this happens in big niche markets, its an opportunity for someone with good content to land in those positions and help people out. Google will absolutely recognize a site with good content and rank it higher up, and once the comments and positive feedback from users starts coming it, Google will reward that site even more with higher rankings.
Yes, I definitely agree with you. It isn’t dead, it’s just different. The other day, I was reading the blog of someone who started in 2008 and was amazed by the difficulties that she had to face. I have always wished that I started earlier but that post showed me what it was truly like in the beginning when few people knew what they were doing and social media was completely different.
One thing that has always been interesting to me is Google’s smart search. With an increased number of users, I can only imagine how it will sort results and the benefits that this will have for various websites. At any rate, thanks for the great post. You have definitely reinforced the need to put content out there.
No problem! I would not worry about not starting early enough, back then article directories were what worked, but they died out and personal blogs with good content would then be the new way to go, and that was around 2010 and later, so you didn’t really miss out on anything, if nothing else, because there’s more users out there now, that just provides you with more opportunities today than back then.
Hi Vitaliy:
Great post! I love how you have laid out all the reasons we should still pursue SEO. And, like you say, the number one factor that produces high SEO ranking is consistently published quality content.
I am always working on this but, since I have other obligations, writing a post a day is not likely for the time being.
What you said about having 50 posts on your site…is that more or less the standard number of posts needed to be recognized by Google? It is really great to know that the online purchasing universe continues to grow and you have pointed that out nicely.
Sounds like you have had great success. Best wishes to you going forward!
Hi Christopher, the 50 post mark isn’t exactly universal, I just pointed that figure out for a few reasons:
1) By the time someone writes 50 posts, their site is a few months old and around that time, Google starts looking at the site more closely to see if it’s worth ranking higher. Having more posts around that time will only help make this likely to happen.
2) In more competitive niches, 50 posts is a good benchmark to aim for, and I have had a few sites which after crossing that mark started to see much more traffic coming in.
3) There really is no “central” figure on how many posts you should have, but the more there are, the better. I believe that bloggers who aim to do SEO should first aim to hit the 50 mark, then 100, then onward. And it’s a well known fact that the best ranking blogs on Google have the most content, the most comment activity and the most shares. There’s a reason why this is and what I suggest leads bloggers in that direction.
Great article!
I think the most usual reason is that people can’t wait for success. They want it to be immediate and when it doesn’t come after a few months, they give up and say that it doesn’t work. I’m glad SEO isn’t dead as I’m focused on this to get traffic to my blog!
You are right, impatience is certainly a major factor in people believing this lie about SEO, but it’s also fueled by marketers who aren’t telling them that SEO takes time to master. They tell them it takes too long, but then offer them garbage, black hat marketing stuff to make it short, but those things don’t work and as a result, the people believe it’s the fault of the system, not the marketer who told them the lie.