Services
TAYA

They Ask, You Answer Mastery

A coaching & training program that drives unmatched sales & marketing results.

Sales

Sales Performance Mastery

Improve the competencies and close rates of your sales organization.

Web design

Website Mastery

Web design, development & training for your team.

HubSpot

HubSpot Mastery

Everything you need to get the most from HubSpot.

AI Mastery

AI Enablement Mastery

Unlock the power of AI in all aspects of your revenue operations.

Discover how IMPACT’s services can help take your business to the next level. Book a free 30-minute coaching session Book a free 30-minute coaching session
Learning Center
Learning Center

Learning Center

Free resources to help you improve the way you market, sell and grow your business.

Discover how IMPACT’s services can help take your business to the next level. Book a free 30-minute coaching session Book a free 30-minute coaching session

Free: Assessment Does your website build trust with buyers and bring in revenue?

Score My Website
Close

Free: Assessment

Does your website build trust with buyers and bring in revenue?
Take this free 6 question assessment and learn how your website can start living up to its potential.
Score My Website
Search Engine Optimization

Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still Relevant?

Bob Ruffolo

By Bob Ruffolo

May 14, 2012

Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still Relevant?

When people ask me a question like this, I’ve got to admit… my jaw drops a bit. Search engine optimization is as relevant now as it’s ever been.  For whatever reason, there seems to be a rumor going around on the ‘web that SEO is no longer as important, or even important at all, when it comes to online marketing.

This couldn’t be less true.

The Right Kind of SEO

Here’s where I think people are getting confused: SEO has changed over the years.  In some ways, very slightly, and in other ways, dramatically. But SEO is still present and still makes a huge impact on where you rank when it comes to search engines.

Let’s rewind, say, to 10 years ago. This is the era when most people were familiar with blatant and ugly SEO techniques. These techniques are called “Black Hat SEO” techniques.  This type of SEO was most obvious to people because it was all about keyword stuffing, which is what people have come to associate SEO with.

For example, the sentence “If you want to buy from a car dealership, you will want to find a car dealership that is a reputable car dealership and that is a car dealership that offers good financing” is a good example of what most people associate with SEO (with the keywords here obviously being “car dealership”).

If you’ve hit up the web recently, you’ve probably noticed a drastic decline in these types or articles existing on the web. Why? Because search engines changed their search algorithm.  Google finally said, “I’m sick of this!” and tailored their search engine so that websites that were cluttered with garbage content that is just parked there for the purpose of keyword stuffing would either a) be ranked extremely low to the point where no one can find that website, or b) be blocked forever from their search engines.

But Google changing their search algorithm doesn’t mean that SEO is no longer relevant; all that this means is that the rules of SEO have changed, and in my opinion, for the better.

For more on how Google's latest changes are effecting your website, download our FREE eBook, "Google's Latest Algorithm Change Hates Your Website."

Useful Content

Search engines know what it takes to have people continually coming back to them, and they finally figured out that people go on the web not for useless content, but for useful content.  Search algorithms have now been tailored to favor websites that have quality content that is of benefit to the person who is seeking it.

Do keywords still play an important role in SEO?  Yes, of course.  But it’s no longer all about how many keywords you can shove into every corner of a website.  It’s about how well the content flows and how readable it is.  It’s about how much fresh content is being added regularly.  It’s about the quality of backlinks that you get from your visitors.

Backlinks are an important part to SEO.  Think of backlinks in terms of “votes”.  Every time you get a backlinks, you get a vote from that person. That vote is essentially telling search engines that yes, the website you’re on is one of quality and is worthy of being highly ranked in a search engine because it matches what you were looking for.

A lot of people also don’t realize that other online marketing methods, like video marketing campaigns, can play a huge role in their SEO.  This may not have been true 5 years ago, but now videos on a website can catapult a site from sitting on page 13 of the search engines to page 2.  Search engines know that people prefer videos over reading text and will give a higher ranking to sites that include different media like videos and images than those that don’t.

These are just a couple of examples of how SEO has changed over the years, and it will continue to change as the Internet continues to mature and grow.  So is SEO still relevant?  Yes, and it forever will be.  It’s all just a matter of learning the rules of the game and then learning how to apply those rules to your online marketing campaign.

For more on redesigning your website to maximize your marketing efforts, download our FREE eBook, "Website Redesign 101."

Key Takeaways:

SEO is just as relevant today as it has always been. The techniques may change from year to year, making it imperative that you stay on top of “what works” and “what doesn’t”, but SEO is the number one thing that will keep your site ranking high in search engines.

Need Help?

If you're interested in search engine optimization but are having trouble getting started, contact us today to schedule your free marketing analysis.

Free: Assessment

Does your website build trust with buyers and bring in revenue?
Take this free 6 question assessment and learn how your website can start living up to its potential.

Related Articles

Content Marketing and AI-Powered Generative Search

September 20, 2023
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

9 SEO Best Practices for Stronger Organic Traffic in 2023

November 18, 2022
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Video SEO: How To Optimize Videos To Drive Traffic to Your Website

May 9, 2022
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

37 Eye-opening SEO Statistics To Nail Your 2022 Search Strategy

April 28, 2022
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

10 Reasons Why Your Website Is Not Ranking In Google

February 10, 2022
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google Shares New Tools to Audit Website User Experience

August 12, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google: Website Content Quality More Important Than Quantity

August 10, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

How Long Tail Keyword Research Can Drive Business

August 9, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

How to Optimize Videos On Your Business Website for Search

July 23, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google: 'Here's how to prepare for the future private web'

July 16, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Too many internal links in content can confuse Google about site structure

July 9, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google July 2021 core update rolling out over next 2 weeks

July 2, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Inbound Marketing Help: My Traffic And Leads Are Down. What Can I Do?

June 28, 2021
John Becker John Becker

Finally, Google page experience core update is rolling out

June 18, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

What is a Featured Snippet? [Definition + Examples]

June 10, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google June 2021 core update live, July core update coming

June 4, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google's June page experience core update will be mobile first, then desktop

May 21, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google confirms demise of Q&A search feature, Question Hub lives on

April 26, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Big Google algorithm update moved to June with new performance report

April 21, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

No, changing page publish dates won't increase Google search rankings

April 10, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google: 'zero-click search' claims and data 'misleading'

April 5, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

3 quick SEO fixes that will increase your website rankings right away

March 30, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

10 Google Analytics metrics you absolutely must track (updated)

March 29, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Meet the new Google My Business review management view

March 20, 2021
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Google Ads help: Top 10 reasons your Google Ads campaigns are failing

March 10, 2021
Jason Linde Jason Linde