There’s a reason why search engine optimization (SEO) is a widely talked about topic – both online and offline.
An article on Search Engine Land highlighted some numbers to prove that SEO as a marketing strategy is benefitting businesses in more ways than one:
- A National Retail Federation study showed that search engine marketing, which includes SEO, was the most effective new customer acquisition channel for 85% of online retailers in 2014.
- Data from Kenshoo, a digital marketing platform, saw search as a way for businesses to introduce their products and services to target consumers, as 64% of business travelers and 58% of leisure travelers used search as a starting point to book their travels.
- BrightEdge, a content marketing service, discovered that organic search generates 51% of all website traffic, and that over 40% of revenue comes from organic traffic.
These tell us that SEO is nowhere near dead, as some well-meaning observers have confidently declared in the past.
SEO is alive more than ever, albeit a more evolved discipline, and certainly not dying anytime soon.
The evolution of SEO
In the past, working with SEO was a relatively simple practice. The more links pointing back to your website, the higher you rank in the search engines.
The end result:
People abused the system, and the search engines awarded top rankings to sites that used keyword stuffing, aggressive link building, and excessive page optimization, among other SEO practices.
Eventually – and thankfully – Google decided that enough was enough. Hummingbird, Penguin, Panda, and a slew of other algorithm changes were introduced, slapping erring website owners where it hurt the most.
As search engines became smarter, each algorithm change saw many websites grudgingly relinquishing their coveted search engine positions.
And then came the new SEO rallying cry, which, if you think about it, is not so new at all:
“Quality content is algorithm-proof content.”
SEO in 2015
A lot certainly has changed, but SEO continues to be a widely used digital marketing technique
To benefit from your SEO efforts from this point on and ensure that your website doesn’t experience any costly setbacks in the future, there are some search marketing facts and principles you must keep in mind, several of which are detailed in the infographic below.
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