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SEO Is Dead. Again.

By: Jordan McCollum
2007-08-06

Sorry, folks. If you were working in SEO, your career is over. Just ask Tadeusz Szewczyk, who guest posted on Google Blogoscoped earlier this week:

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as we know and detest it is obsolete in this day and age. When some while ago Philipp asked me to write an article How do I optimize websites I couldnt do it: The way SEO works in Germany on Google.de can not really work for international websites in English. Moreover nowadays you do not need conventional SEO tactics to have success on the Net or in Google. In order to make a site succeed in these times you have to forget everything you know about on page optimization and link building first.

    Now we can start our ten step guide to Google and traffic heaven.
His advice on what to do instead of SEO to promote your website is pretty solid"but man, it sure walks like SEO and quacks like SEO.
    1. Discover your niche"Be different, choose a topic or product that not everybody else already covers or sells. Discovering it is not to be confused with keyword research as in conventional SEO. You try to introduce a new niche not just obeying the Google users-- demands.
    2. Use Wordpress"Thats WordPress. Instead of on page optimization you can install Wordpress that is search engine friendly out of the box. Well, dont tell the large number of SEO bloggers on WordPress whove done posts, series, vidcasts and more on making WordPress SEO-compliant.
    3. Create a killer CSS design and submit it to CSS galleries"Traditional SEO is all about link building or getting links. Sites doing SEO often look crappy. These days people link web sites that look great just for the sake of the design.
    4. Allow trackbacks, use dofollow
    5. Socialize, write comments and link other blogs
    6. Include social media on your site, use social media yourself
    7. Write your own content, say something new, express yourself
    8. Compile what you know or what others said and publish it"If everything was said and done already in a particular case, compile it and create a list. Top list are the best solutions
    9. Contribute to your favorite online publications"Most publishers will link to your site.
    10. Add new content at least every second day
On one pass through, its easy to accept this advice as materially different from SEO, especially with the care that Tadeusz has taken to point out the differences between SEO and his advice.

But the more I read this (as it was reblogged), the more I started recognizing some of these techniques as fairly standard SEO practices today. In Tadeuszs defense, perhaps optimizing for Google.de is unlike what is currently required to optimize for Google.com, but heres my take on his tips:
    1. If you dont have a niche, are you sure you have a website?
    If your website, blog or business doesnt have a niche, thats a more fundamental failing than marketing problem. Its definitely step 1. But why limit yourself by not doing any keyword research? If you want to blog about crane flies (gross), shouldnt you somehow find out that theyre also called mosquito hawks, mosquito eaters (or skeeter eaters), gallinippers, gollywhoppers, and jimmy spinners?
    2. Tweak WordPress to make it more SE friendly
    Yes, use WordPress if it makes sense for your site. But at the minimum, do something to enhance its search engine optimization"SEO Title Tag and Add Meta Tags plugins enable you to customize various settings. Why pass up the chance to control your snippet on the Google SERP?
    3. Over here, CSS is SEO
    Okay, this is debatable, but lots of SEOs will tell you that CSS is the preferred SEO design method (specifically external CSS). And most of the time, a crappy-looking site that hires a professional SEO will get a redesign. Usually, a killer design can only increase your linkability. Submitting your CSS design to galleries to get more links back to your site is also just another example of link recruitment, which, again, is pretty old school SEO.
    4. Get links, give links
    5. Promote your site/business and your brand and get links, give links
    Pretty much SEO 1.0 to do something to draw attention to your site from other sites. One of the most popular ways: link to a site, get the site owners attention.
    6. SMO
    SMO isnt perfectly equivalent with SEO, but really, where do you think the idea to heavily promote your site using social media came from? Diggers?
    7. Avoid duplicate content/dont plagiarize and create lots of original content
    Technically, I usually tell clients something about keyword-rich original content designed to be attractive to visitors and search engines, but if you selected a niche up in #1, at least you have some sort of keywords that youre using (even if youre absolutely not allowed to look at how other people articulate those concepts).
    8. One word: linkbait.
    Of course it works. I linked, didnt I?
    9. Become an authority/promote your site on other sites and recruit links
    10. Create original content and update regularly
While many of these tips arent directly on-point as current SEO techniques, I think most people offering holistic SEO services will at least address everything he mentioned.

The bottom line? Why avoid the established principles of search engine friendly and search engine optimized sites? If theres something that can help make your blog, site or business rank better, trying to prove a point by not using the technique is shooting yourself in the foot. Im not trying to dismiss Tadeuszs sound advice"but I would like people to recognize that SEO isnt just keyword research and comment spam.


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About the Author:
Jordan McCollum is a staff writer for the popular marketing blog Marketing Pilgrim. She has worked in search engine optimization with clients including 3M, Little Giant Ladders and ADP. After graduating from Brigham Young University, Jordan joined the SEO copywriting team at the Internet marketing firm 10x Marketing. After 10x closed its doors in December 2006, Jordan became a freelance writer and Internet marketing consultant specializing in SEO. She also has extensive experience with web analytics, conversion rate enhancement and e-mail marketing.


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