Is Search Engine Optimization Dead?
That’s the secret question I hear going around SEO circles these days. And with the continual rise of alternatives to search (like Youtube, Twitter, etc.) who can blame them?
With the push of the major search engines (read: Google) leaning toward personalized search results, the big question is will SEO even matter?
“How can you optimize for a listing when people may not even see what you’re promoting?” asks SEO and Blogging expert Pat Marcello.
That’s a good question for online marketers who rely heavily on free traffic from the search engines.
With all of this in mind, here are some things to think about as search becomes more personalized and people use more and more services and media to find the information they are looking for (and hopefully find your business).
First, consider that personalized search is dynamic by nature.
Personalized search results are continually modified over time, it’s not something that is set in stone one time.
As an extreme example, consider someone who goes online and does a search for the first time. There really isn’t a pattern of search history to deliver personalized results.
So what results will be displayed? Obviously the most relevant results, many of which will be based on proper optimization and deliver great content.
Keep in mind that every day there are hundreds of thousands, even millions of brand new prospects in your market niche who are just starting to search for the very first time.
If you have a website that is properly optimized and provides great content; you’ll be there to capture those brand new prospects.
Hopefully attracting, capturing, and catering to newbies in your niche is a part of your business model to begin with as that happens to be the largest part of any market and in many cases the most profitable (based on volume).
If you constantly rank high for new searches to your market and provide good relevant content that keeps new prospects coming back to your site (and other media) for information related to your niche; then as prospects continue to search you’ll naturally become a part of their personalized search results either as a result of them directly bookmarking your site or indirectly by Google and other search engines personalizing their results with your site.
Second, a very important part of your business model should be capturing your prospects contanct information so you can follow up with them and market to them on an ongoing basis.
If you focus on list building, you’ll be able to capture the information from most people who are new to your market and bring them into your online community. “Build a fence around them”, as Dan Kennedy would say.
In this case, even if in the long run personalized search crowded you out, that really wouldn’t matter because you’ve already captured your prospects information and now have complete control over the marketing process.
So in the worst case scenario personalized search is crowding your website out, but you still have your prospects information for follow up.
In the best case scenario, you have your prospects information for follow up, and personalized search is also crowding out your competition.
The bottom line is that personalized search is all about giving results to the end user (your potential prospects and customers) that are useful and relevant.
It all comes down to providing good quality origianl content that is of high value. Good SEO is just the icing on the cake.
