SEO is dead. Again.

SEO is a world I know pretty well. Having built my first e-commerce business in the “early aughts”, and then moving to consulting with other e-comm operators, some time spent in “agency life” and ultimately a run in-house for B2b tech marketing… SEO runs through all of it…  Even today some of our T&M invoices note “SEO” as a line item.

Lots of people talk about the idea that SEO is dead. If you do a google search for “SEO is dead” (which is a pretty ironic thing to do, eh?) you find lots of arguments for dead, not dead, dead, maybe dead. 

From my perspective SEO will never be dead, in exactly the same way that insurance will never be dead, and healthcare will never be dead. Essentially, optimizing your website for more and better inbound search is something you really should do… But, how we do these things? The how we do these things will die a dozen times before you retire. 

There is a cycle in any business. There is cutting edge, then mass adoption, then right when your favorite band makes it big… something else takes the place of what was. What I am trying to say here is that “what SEO is” has changed and will change and is changing now. 

Traditional SEO is dead, because by definition, tradition is not taking into account the most current way of doing anything. 

Our position on SEO is that there is a component of hygiene, best practices, etc. and there is a component of growth, pursuit, expansion. We consider SEO to be an active pursuit of additional visibility to a broader and broader set of doors for your prospects to find you. For us, this means targeted strategic content briefs… but no matter who you work with for SEO make sure you ask about evolution. Ask about the ways their strategy has changed. Ask about their dead.