SEO dead?

[imageworks-261290]

What does everyone think about this article?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2 … l-content/

I tend to think its off base, Link building still works and there are tons of things that have to do with SEO that have nothing to do with link building...

I think its actually quite ridiculous and written by people that actually no nothing about SEO...kind of a lame attempt by Forbes, and if anything at all, this is just forbes practicing "SEO" with a link attraction post like this. Becase SEO, is NOT dead

[Gyi]

The death of SEO has been greatly exaggerated at least as far back as 1997: https://plus.google.com/117235644077949816393/posts/ccq57PqfYXm

h/t: Wil Reynolds

I think EGOL's comment ends the debate.

[Intergen]

Totally agreed - we did go back and optimize once our website went live.

[Intergen]

Yes you are correct it is anathema.  However it was the best use of our time with the resources we had when we were getting started.

We have gone back and optimized our site. But we knew we could more/quicker results with the path we took.  Also, early on we started with a series of landing pages rather than a website - tested the concept (incl. PPC) and validated our hypothesis before we built a website.

But that definitely has me thinking that I should also go back and give PPC another try now that there is a website backing it up.

And finally another reason was that all of our clients were teachers.  They were looking for freebies but we found that many would not complete reg - no matter what method we used. They weren't sure of who we were - brand new to the education vertical - so even if we did rank on Google I don't think it would have mattered much at that time (now it does).

So partnering with a 20+ year education industry veterans gave us the street cred. with the teachers.  Also, teachers hearing from influencers in education were more likely to sign up rather than going through a Google search or PPC.

The first 6 - 9 months were really about the word or mouth credibility that came from partners and influencers that got us the biggest return.

[EGOL]

Nice work on making this successful without search engines.

It's not too late to optimize those pages.  You might make a lot more money.

[RobertFisher]

EGOL,

As to forbes and you doing the SEO: I have sent them a letter telling them they would!

[RobertFisher]

Ryan, as usual you and EGOL do a masterful job here. I do want to add one thing though: While Ken and Adam may have never heard of you, I have. This was an attempt at getting links by a couple of pikers. Sorry, that's how I see it. Frankly, I think:

THE UNINFORMED POSTING STUPID BLOGS TO OLD MEDIA SITES FOR LINKS IS DEAD!!!

Was tempted to link to something here.....

[RobertFisher]

I was going to ignore all until I read this, so I will respond to the thread separately.

But, in your response to Igor, you state you essentially ignored on page optimization, failed at PPC, and used no PR agency. (and no bought links).

Then you state you did other marketing outside of web based: relationships, events, conferences and that worked.

So, here is my question: If you were going to go to this tremendous effort (and include social, content, etc. What was the purpose/reason for not doing on page optimization utilizing key words significant to the page?)  
Do you get business from your site? Is it driven by a query on a search engine?

To go to the trouble of creating dynamic content and then ignore basic SEO is anathema to me.

I did like all the rest though.

[Intergen]

Don't worry Igor - SEO isn't dead but the way we do SEO is always evolving.  I have "tested" lots of ways to do SEO - some good and some not so good.

But I have arrived at what I know works and the Fortune article is correct IMO on a couple of items.

I launched a new brand about 1-1/2 years ago.  We were able to put over 100,000 users on the product, get over 220 earned press mentions (without a PR agency) and win 3 industry awards within 11 months.

What did I NOT do?

• I didn't even optimize the web pages for search terms.
• I tried PPC and it failed miserably - the vertical I was going after apparently hates PPC - go figure.
• No PR agency - they are overpriced and get so-so results.  Sorry just my experience working with 4 of them.
• I didn't buy even one link.

What did we do? Exactly what the Fortune article points out and a few extras....

• Our biggest winner by far was building relationships with other companies (20 years in the industry) in the vertical we were new to. It now provides anywhere from 30 - 50% of all of our new users.
• A solid Content Marketing strategy.  We created solid value and content and packed the site full of extremely valuable Free Resources. We hired an expert in the vertical and they did webinars and events for the new partners at no cost - we re-purposed this content and dropped it onto social sites as well as our site. We had a blog that was updated regularly with industry relevant info etc etc etc
• As far as outreach we had a strong social media plan and a dedicated and an experienced social manager. We were able to connect and build online relationships that translated into many articles, back links and natural SEO which was always our goal.  No link building was done at all beyond the natural links we received.
• We attended industry events and conferences and had speakers at all of the events.  We had booths at the events and had pre, during and post event strategies ready to go weeks before the events. We even had a guide of the top 15 infuencers that we wanted to meet and everyone from our company had a picture, bio and knew the "likes and dislikes" of each influencer. We connected with 12 of them at one event - this resulted in tweets, FB engagement, blog posts etc. = links (natural SEO).

These were just a few of the tactics and strategies we used.  Did it support SEO for us? Sure, in the new sense of the word.  I think SEO is evolving and getting truly engaged in your niche, vertical and industry are key.  Find the thing that you really want to drive to be the best in and go for it.  I think this is the new SEO - you will get links that you could have never bought, you will get exposure that a PR firm could have never secured and by gosh you may even succeed

[David_ODonnell]

"SEO is dead" is the internet version of the boy who cried wolf.

What it takes to create a well optimized website is constantly changing and expanding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing IMO.

[EGOL]

It was a shoot-from-the-hip article done with zero research so that yada yada yada writing could get him content in under an hour.

Same type of content as discussed here...

http://www.seomoz.org/q/i-want-to-know-if-this-is-bogus-or-not

[RyanKent]

I agree with EGOL on everything and will elaborate a bit more and cross some lines.

Forbes is a very high profile publication, but if you think about it when was the last time you performed a search and found a Forbes article as the top result? As a company, Forbes does not perform as well as it could or should in search. They have no expertise in SEO and as EGOL suggested, they could benefit from some SEO advice.

So who wrote the article? Ken Krogue. Who is he? According to his own bio, "I'm a serial entrepreneur with a short attention span, so I need things to work really fast. " Is that the kind of person you want to take SEO advice from?

So is there ANY basis whatsoever for making such a claim? The only logical reason is the guy wanted a headline, and it worked. He claims the basis of the article is a conversation with Adam Torkildson, "one of the top SEO consultants in Utah". OK.

Well I never heard of Adam which is fine. He probably has never heard of me either. I was curious to find out about him and where better then the About page on his own site: http://adamtorkildson.com/about-2/. Umm...there is nothing really helpful there. His site is very basic, but who am I to judge since my site is still under construction.

According to his LinkedIn page, he is a PR Coordinator, although he previously worked for SEO.com. I am still trying to understand how the Forbes author felt a person who presently is employed as a PR Coordinator would be a great source for the statement "SEO will be dead in 2 years". Oh wait....I just found something. He is a PLUS author on EZine.

I do not ever wish to share anything negative about any person or company, especially in our industry, but when you make such a statement as "SEO will be dead in two years" you are truly opening yourself up to ridicule.

Here is what Matt Cutts has to share on the topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQArUFRb4Is

So the question to you is...who do you find more credible? Matt Cutts or the others?

[EGOL]

As long as there are search engines, a person who understands how they work will have an enormous advantage over the ignorant person who just tosses up a website.

I bet Forbes.com would get a lot more traffic if I was doing their SEO.

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Hoping its not true, as I am investing a ton of time and money to learn SEO...