Is SEO Dead?

blog post

17 Mar

Spoiler alert: No, SEO is not dead. As long as there are search engines there will be ways to tweak your website to give it the best chance of getting in front of people who will buy your stuff or use your service.

It’s true SEO is no longer a case of stuffing keywords into your back end. It’s much, much harder than that.

But once you grasp what SEO actually means, it starts to make more sense...

It all starts with Google (or Ask Jeeves, or one of the other ones)

Google’s business depends on the quality of its search results.

When you type a search phrase into Google, it provides you with the list of websites it believes will best meet your needs. If it is slow, offers broken or fraudulent websites that don’t meet your needs (for example giving you websites about how gin is made when you searched for “buy gin online”) you will stop using Google.

So, in order to survive, Google has to be very quick at evaluating websites very accurately.

The evaluation process is the job of the famed GOOGLE ALGORITHM, a complex piece of code that uses various different criteria to make sure your website is legitimate, in good working order, and capable of meeting the needs of the person who searched for it.

How does SEO work?

Google’s algorithm reduces the appropriateness of a website down to a list of rules around:

how fast it loads,
how well it works,
how relevant its content is to the needs of the person who typed their search phrase into Google.

As long as there are search engines, there will always be SEO

SEO in a nutshell means giving your customers exactly what they need. If they want to know how gin is made, give them the most comprehensive, fun, educational, interactive information about gin making that you can possibly give. If they want to buy gin, make it look sensational and feature it front and centre on your homepage.

Here are a few basic DIY SEO tips…

WHAT AND WHERE: Be clear about what you do and use descriptions and addresses consistently

This is where keywords are still vital, but only if used truthfully.

1) Decide on a short, specific phrase to describe what you do, and use this phrase consistently. Serving a small niche may feel limiting but it is a very successful strategy for SEO. Rather than being a copywriter, be a “brand story copywriter” or a “retail copywriter”. Use the same phrase to describe your business every time you describe what you do. This gives you the best chance of appearing high up in search when someone searches for that exact thing.

When you blog, blog about the specific thing you do and use the phrase often, particularly in the first 100 words of each post. Don’t go off topic. Brainstorm all the things anyone might want to know about the thing you do and get writing. Check what people search on Google about the thing you do - you’ll find this in Related Searches on any Google search results page.

2) Say where you do your thing and use your address consistently.

There are few concrete ‘rules’ in SEO, but here is one: register your business address on every online business directory you can find and write your address in exactly the same way, down to whether you use “Road” or “Rd” or put a comma between town and postcode (hint: don’t).

DON’T DEVELOP AND RUN: Update your site with quality content on a regular basis

This signals to Google that the site is run by dedicated, real people who keep it up to date at all times.

GRAB THAT TRAFFIC: Optimise your home page and blog introductions to reduce bounce rate

One way Google measures the effectiveness of content is by seeing how quickly people bail out and go back to Google. If you can get someone to click a link or button on your website as soon as they arrive, they’ll be more likely to click again. If you can get them hooked with a promise or a video at the top of a blog post they’ll stick around longer.

Sometimes I will recommend a homepage overhaul for the purposes of SEO. Why? Because an ugly, unclear homepage is a massive turnoff. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, or how many keywords you use, if the homepage looks dull and uninspiring, people will leave your site as soon as they arrive, and Google will notice.

Yeah but what about backlinks, huh?

A backlink is a link from another, usually bigger, website to your website.

Let’s say you run a small booze shop and Coca Cola links to you to recommend your drinks (wouldn’t happen, but you see what I mean), Google would be all like “Woah! I was wrong about these little booze guys, they are actually amazing because that site with a TON of traffic is linking to them”. You’d get lots of Google kudos (not a real thing) and a search engine boost (real thing).

You can buy backlinks and if you have the money, please do. But I think the best backlinks are free because the site will be linking to you in order to help their own users. If you work with other businesses, talk to them about linking to each others’ sites. I get a backlink from every site I build. I also write about building charity websites, which earned me a link from Donorbox. That sort of backlink is like a slice of fried gold to a one-woman band like me.

But isn’t Squarespace, like, super slow?

As any Wordpress developer will tell you with a serious look on their face and cash registers ringing in their ears, Squarespace pages are big and heavy. This is because Squarespace contains a ton of code that enables its users to build their own websites without tearing their eyeballs out.

What these Wordpress developers either don’t know or don’t share is that Google cares about the user’s experience of page loading, not the actual weight of the page.

Eh?

Squarespace pages load bit by bit, starting at the top and prioritising the most important content. Your users aren’t sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting for the page to load because they can start interacting with it immediately while everything else loads in the background.

Right now, in March 2021, we’re waiting for a Google algorithm update that may change this situation. My fingers are crossed and I’ll keep this article up to date on any new impact on SEO.