The Death of SEO? I think not.

I recently read a post on Forbes’ website from a guy named Ken Krogue tantalizingly titled “The Death Of SEO” which really drove me up a wall.  When I got to the line that reads: “So by definition the word “Search Engine Optimization” means to ‘game’ the Google search engines (and others)…”,  I was so mad I could drop-kick a puppy.

On the basics, Ken’s got it right.

• There is on-page and off-page  SEO (he calls them “Internal” and “External”).
• On-page make up about 15 to 30 percent of the process.
• There’s “White hat” and “Black hat” SEOers.
• Relevant, valuable content (text, video, whatever) is key.

So here’s where I draw the line.

Ken cites Google’s release of the “Penguin” algorithm that (allegedly) was going to punished “over-optimization.”  The truth is much more boring.  The new algorithm update simply changed how different ranking influencers were weighted in the final result.  It was a lot to do about nothing.

He goes on to suggest that Google doesn’t care as much anymore about how many people link to you as they do about how many people share your content via social media.

That’s just swinging the pendulum in another direction.  Are we supposed to spend all our time getting people to share our content now? No.  Hell no.

Real, “White hat” SEO has nothing to do with “gaming” search engines or any other system for that matter.  Real SEO is about:

1. Developing websites with high search engine visibility.
2. Producing original, compelling, relevant content on multiple mediums.
3. Syndicating your content gently and ethically (e.g. don’t just talk and talk – listen).

The job of Search Engines is to provide searchers the most relevant, highest quality content possible.  If your competition is “gaming” the system and calling it “SEO,” just wait.  The algorithm will swing away from them and back towards the middle soon enough.

As far as SEO by definition being a service of “gaming” the system, that’s bull (by definition).

Now, repeat after me:

I SEOer,
Take Thee Google,
To Love and to Optimize for,
With useful, and unique content
through SERP changes and algorithm updates,
For Social or Adwords campaigns,
Till Death or Server Outage do us part.

I’m not saying there aren’t people who try to “game the system”, anymore than there aren’t people who cheat on their taxes.  I’m just saying Ethical SEO is just putting on a nice suit for a first date.   It’s NOT a pocket full of roofies.

SEO is not dead – or even dieing.  It’s just growing up.
By the way, no puppies were harmed in the writing of this post.