The "SEO" is dead? Or are they not?
- Li Ling
- Mar 8, 2019
- 3 min read
What is SEM? And what does SEO got to do with SEM? Why are marketing industry publications declaring that SEO is dying?
To begin, let's start with an introduction about Search Engine. A Search Engine is a software available on the Internet, that search through database of information according to user's queries to provide a list of results that best matches what the user is looking for. Breaking it up, search engine consist of a set of algorithms and it searches through a massive database catalogs of information known as Indexes when a user look up for answers or solution to their problems and queries. In return, the query processor, provides search engine result page (SERP) after querying the indexes.
SEM
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to promoting an organization through search engines to meet its objectives by delivering relevant content in the search listings for searchers, and encouraging them to click through to a destination site” (Chaffey et al, 2012). Basically, we have two types of SEM Techniques, namely Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) and Paid Search Marketing such as Sponsored Listing and Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
SEO
The purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to increase the rankings of a company or its product or services in search engine organic result listings, for selected keywords or phrases. (Chaffey et al ,2012) As a business point of view, the higher my SEO ranking on search engines such as Google or Yahoo to name a few, the higher the traffic into my website. Visitors are highly targeted and have higher intention to pay.
However, it is not an effective option for developing brand awareness as sites are ranked according to the quality of the content, the frequency of keywords used, number of other useful sites linking to the page, as well as the number of click-through generated by searches. As businesses could not afford spending large amount of time building quality content on its website, using SEO to build brand awareness will be hard.
Organic Search Engine Results for Customized Bath Bombs
The first 2 companies that passes Google's strict algorithms when it comes to Organic Search Engine Results are Etsy and Kickstarter.
Back to the question! With a rise in digital marketing industry publications claiming that "SEO is dead", I do not agree with them. However, I do understand why many digital marketing industry publications believes that SEO is dying. Instead of shifting away from traditional SEO to focus on quality content, Online Marketing tactics says that High Quality Content is what brings in viewers these days. I believe that traditional SEO and good quality content has to work together in order to increase SEO ranking. Hence, I will be talking about the reasons why such headlines are appearing on the internet these days.
Google's New Algorithms
Google's old algorithms allows Black Hat's methods such as spamming, keyword stuffing, and low quality content with many links to increase the SEO ranking of sites. With the new algorithms in place, Google now penalized websites who stuffs keywords.
Mobile-Friendly Websites
As more inquires comes from the use of mobile phones, Google now set penalties for new websites who do not have a mobile version. Page loading time is one of the factor that Google consider, which pushes the website's ranking to the forefront of the SERP.
Thank You for your time and do feel free to comment if you agree or disagree that SEO is dead! Also, feedback for improvements are very much welcome too!
@shumin_sm I agree with you that SEO is much cheaper than PPC! Imagine having to pay for every click into your website! That means including paying for bounce rate where people accidentally click into the websites or exit the website after seconds into the website!
@Ng WanLing Thankyou for commenting! I know right, I personally feels that PPC are only for big companies while SME should focus on building better quality contents in their websites and other marketing communications efforts to increase brand awareness!
@Mar Ryan Lim I agree with you too! Don't think SEO will ever die since it is the basis for SEM! At most the criteria for SEO ranking changes and marketers need to adapt and change…
Hi! Great information about SEO and SEM! Ive learnt a lot about how SEM works in the real world. I dont think SEO is dead and will probably never die.
With other marketing tactics, SEO can still come hand in hand with it. I think it’s all about brand recall and recognition. If you have put in substantial amount of effort for other marketing efforts, people will come to know about your brand and thus search up about your company on google. You don’t necessarily need to buy Ads on google to boost your viewership too. Hence, SEO is definitely not dead!
I do agree with you the SEO is not dead. With the advancement of technology, we will still need SEO to be around. And another good point about SEO is that it's relatively cheaper than PPC.
@weiheng fung Yes i agree with you! With the recent revamp in Google's algorithms, websites that appears on the top searches are websites with good content that will benefits internet users. However, this also means that it is not easy getting your websites on the first page on Google's search pages.
@Loy Qiao Ling I know right! I very much agree with you too!