Forbes magazine once published an article titled “The Death of SEO: The Rise of Social, PR, and Real Content” which sparked much debate and controversy across the industry. The article, one of the leading SEO consultants on the Sunshine Coast says that Google is moving towards making the SEO industry bygones and that SEO will be dead in two years. The truth is, search engine optimization will definitely change in the next two years, however, how online marketers strategize in terms of selling and buying of strategies in order to rank higher on search engines will not go away.

With SEO, Content Remains King

The typical approach to SEO today is slowly fading away. We will no longer be focusing on how many backlinks a website has, or whether a certain number of keywords are scattered on a page trying to persuade search bots what’s on the web page. The evolution of SEO is now more about creating web pages that are the best resource on the internet based on a keyword.

Social Media is Playing a Bigger Role in SEO

The one thing that brings visitors to your website is well-written, high quality and relevant content coupled with SEO algorithms that Google and other search engines have evolved with and have recognised. It is important to shift from backlinks to social media content. Backlinks have always been a way of “leading” people to their websites from other sites. This has led search engines to focus on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google +, to improve audiences’ search journeys. It makes sense because generally the buzz created by people engaging on social media through tweets, shares and other engagement is a far better way to endorse products, brands and services as compared to backlinking – there’s a form of authority that comes with audiences’ backing brands! SEO consultants are still able to use some tricks to persuade people via social media, they still understand that it is far more challenging to trick search engines with social. Speaking to SEO specialists can help you leverage the power of social to work with SEO for your business objectives.

Does this Mean Google is Targeting WordPress?

The changing landscape of SEO is that some industries are questioning whether Google’s changing algorithms are specifically earmarking WordPress sites. With over 56 million WordPress websites around the world, which makes WordPress a strong competitor among rival publishing platforms, it can be alarming for those sites. This means that WordPress sites stand a greater chance of getting impacted due to the number of active sites. Essentially, this means that you need a high-quality website, regardless of the publishing platform you use to take advantage of SEO efforts.

Taking a look at the Forbes articles, WPMU.org looked at the drawbacks of the updated and new Google algorithms, including Google’s Panda and Penguin. If your site has low-quality content blogs and you’re using “black-hat”SEO practices (these include keyword stuffing, creating duplicate content and link farms – sites providing content links from other sites), these algorithms will target your site. Unfortunately, a lot of these sites and blogs come from WordPress. So, is Google really targeting WordPress or is there something else being targeted here? SEO consultants on the Sunshine Coast will tell you that it is not WordPress being targeted, but that Google is lowering low-quality content from ranking higher!

What does this mean for your business and marketing efforts? You need the professional assistance of an SEO consultant on the Sunshine Coast to work on creating websites that touch on the pain-points of your audiences through useful, high-quality and relevant content targeted to your audience and their needs. Additionally, your online marketing strategies need to be implemented taking into account the power of social media content and its impact on search engine rankings.

At Bird Dog, our SEO consultants on the Sunshine Coast test to see if websites are well-thought-out, that they are optimized and that the quality of the content clearly focuses on what SEO is about and how that content translates to audiences. We believe in using practices that can outrank traditional SEO techniques in the ever changing digital landscape. If you’re looking for one of the leading SEO specialists on the Sunshine Coast, get in touch with us!

Clare Louise