SEO has evolved - dare we say we are now a profession

Mike Grehan caused a fair bit of controversy back in 2007 when he wrote his article “SEO Is Dead. Long Live, er, the Other SEO”. At the time it drew some mixed reviews, the usual post-bashers and doom merchants, and those that took the article at face value. So have things changed since the article in question

Old-School “Textbook SEO” has been on the decline for a while. Back in the day (and it wasn’t that long ago in real-time - just an eternity in Online Marketing terms), SEO was as simple as keyword density, well structured contents and a smattering of meta tags thrown in. But things have changed significantly since then. Yahoo is no longer the behemoth it was, and Google now rules the roost, and all the knock on effects that has brought.

Google has introduced a number of features to the search engine results over the course of the last year. The onebox results continue to be refined and further incorporated into the search results pages - sometimes a bit too much in my opinion particular where cross-over with pop (and in particular R&B for some reason) music is concerned.

SEO as Mike stated - has evolved - it is no longer just about simple optimisation of the website. It is about far far more. Whilst many of the fundamentals are similar, the methods of doing so are so different. Content is king they say - a saying I learnt about seven years ago - however it has evolved from simply producing 8000 slightly varying pages of content, to a far more dare I say professional approach - where content is written not only to gauge relevance but to generate linkage -  its about quality these days - not just quantity.

Maybe this has something to do with a general acceptance from the marketing & advertising world that SEO and search marketing is here, and therefore SEO in particular has taken great strides particularly in 2007. SEO is a massive industry now, and as big a shame as it is - it is now a profession. Long since are the days when the likes of Rand Fishkin, Ammon Johns, Danny Sullivan and my friend Marcia would spend many an hour on the forums - and the likes of me could discuss various aspects of SEOMoz, Sphinn ). It is a shame but symbolic of how far our profession has come in a very short period of time
SEO is evolving - and will continue to do so. One thing is for sure - hang on to your seats there are some very interesting times ahead.

Add comment January 26th, 2008