SEO may be redefined, repackaged, and renamed, but it is definitely not going anywhere.

There is a lot of buzz these days about the changing world of online marketing, especially, SEO. It seems SEO is slowly dying.

SEO is evolving, it is changing, but is it going to go into oblivion?

Online marketers are focusing more and more into all aspects of online promotions, not just SEO. This is true today, and it was true earlier as well. The distinction between then and now is that we have many more ways of reaching out to our potential customers. So why is there so much talk about SEO getting replaced by other things? SEO is going through changes, and is evolving in the way it is implemented but how does that make it obsolete?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process whereby webmasters optimize pages so that they can be found on searching on search engines. As long as search engines exist, SEO will exist and perhaps otherwise as well, after all the principles of optimization would essentially be the same everywhere. If you have content and links, you have the scope to optimize it, and that is SEO for you.

Let’s take an example:-
A travel agent wants to utilize the internet to get more customers. The agent has various options to choose from:-

1. Set up a web site
2. Start a blog
3. Create a Google Plus page
4. Create a Facebook page
5. Create a LinkedIn profile
6. A profile on Pinterset

Setting up a website would mean investing in a domain, designing, and hosting space and it would be time consuming and expensive. It is faster and easier to implement points 3-6 without any additional cost, right?

In order to implement a successful strategy across all the Social Media sites, the agent will need to decide on the content, links, layout, etc., and find of way of presenting it such that it has maximum impact on the visitors. What would this process be called?

The objective of a presence on the internet today is to attract relevant visitors who will find relevant information and content on the page. Efforts will need to be put in to ensure that the profile is accessible either by searching or by other reference links, and the content is attractive enough to retain the interest of the visitors. Isn’t this what SEO does? Optimize?

In my opinion, not only will SEO be there, we’ll have various ways of utilizing SEO in the future, SEO will not remain specifically for search engines it is going to be used effectively across social media sites, and other mediums, such as mobiles as well. We may refer to SEO a bit differently in future, but the essence will remain the same. As long as there is content and visitors can optimization be far away?

Think about it, content on the internet needs be said and presented in an attractive way, after all that is the only way to attract visitors. But how do we go about the task of attracting visitors and retaining them, and getting them to take the desired action? Isn’t it the same good old fashioned technique of optimizing?

There may be modification, advancements in the SEO techniques used, but the principles have and will remain the same and so will the practices.