I’ve said on several occasions that the world of search engine optimization has changed a great deal over the past few years. With the rise to prominence of social media, we’ve seen an entirely new paradigm take hold. Rather than being about the search engine, today’s SEO is far more focused on the people using it.
Let’s talk about that.
The internet was new back then. Google wasn’t the huge company it is now. Technical SEO was the most important thing. Content marketing existed, but most SEO experts thought it was optional.
It didn’t matter how good your site was if people couldn’t find it. This meant some techniques were valued most. These included article and directory submissions. Spinning content and keyword stuffing were also important. Optimized meta descriptions were valued above all else.
So…what changed?
Well…Google, for one. Shortly after its founding, Google tasked its engineers with figuring out how to deliver better, more organic search results to its users. From 2005 through to 2010, the company released a number of updates targeted at ‘crap-hat’ SEO techniques.
Then, in 2011, a devastating blow was dealt. It hit traditional SEO hard. Some even say it was the death of traditional SEO. This was the Panda update. Panda aimed to crack down on thin content. It also targeted content farms. This update affected around 12% of search results. That’s a huge number. Think about how big Google’s search engine is.
Although there’s still some debate about what the Hummingbird update actually did, most agree that it placed even more focus on organic search results. It prioritized delivering users the page that best suits their needs, rather than the one with the best optimization.
Google’s attack on inorganic search results
While Google’s attack on inorganic search results has certainly contributed to the shift in SEO, it’s far from the only factor. There’s also the meteoric rise to prominence of social media. It started slowly at first, through websites like MySpace. Then Facebook arrived. It turned the marketing world upside down.
Things haven’t been the same since. Suddenly, consumers were all but demanding that they receive an unprecedented level of consideration in their interactions with the enterprise sector – and they had the power to realize those demands.
As many brands were quick to find out, what may have been a simple blunder before the age of Facebook could, if not properly managed, turn into an outright catastrophe. Similarly, a brand which managed to impress its consumers – whether through its actions or through high-quality content – could find itself rocketed to fame in a matter of days. With social media, viral marketing truly came into its own; the importance of high-quality content was driven home far more by this than by anything Google could have done.
Since its inception, the very core of Search Engine Optimization has changed. Although technical SEO still plays a (comparatively small) part in ranking, these days creating top-notch content and finding success on social media tie success far more to those factors than trying to figure out what Google’s algorithms are thinking.
Content is king, as the old cliché goes – and social media is its queen.
