3 Reasons SEO won’t die anytime soon
I’ve lost count of the number of times people say to me that SEO is going to die out in 5 years time and that people won’t need SEO services in the future. Of course all good SEO’s know that this notion is rubbish, here’s why.
There are only 10 spots on page one
Unless Google makes some big changes there are only 10 spots available on the first page. That means that if you rank highly one year it is quite possible you will be overtaken the next year, especially in industries with 100+ large companies all competing for the first page.
Designers won’t ever fully understand SEO
Some people say that as designers understand the importance of SEO and title tags they will start building SEO friendly sites from scratch. Rubbish. SEO friendly web design is going backwards not forwards. Look back at sites from 5 or 10 years ago and you will see sites that were optimised far better than they are now. The rise of the CMS and the fact anybody can create a website means there are a huge number of sites with extremely poor structure.
SEO = Online PR
The role of an SEO agency is becoming increasingly overlapped with a PR agency. In years to come the first thing an SEO will do with a new client is start making contacts with the major newspapers and trying to get links from them.
SEO isnt going to die, but the value and the respect which SEO’s have is going to considerably diminish because:
1. Every Indian Harry is starting an SEO firm
2. Google is becoming increasingly aware of how much money SEO is raking in and will have their “personal” plans soon.
3. SEO will be empowered and no longer remain in its current DUMB format.
Comment by Ashwin — January 18, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
You are right about designers, Ive seen so many pretty sites from top agencies come in with enquiries but the SEO is awful
Great post
Comment by Glen Allsopp — January 18, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
Now why don’t I agree on your last “reason?” Probably because SEO is not online PR?
Online PR needs SEO to succeed. Show me an SEO agency that overlaps SEO. Linky please
Comment by Mihaela Lica — January 18, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Great post!
Only two things:
About CMS - I know a couple of SEO agency in my country (Italy - excuse for my english… :)) that use Joomla with his plugin designed for SEO. I don’t like so much this solutions and I have very doubts. But they continue using it and they continue to sell.
About SEO as an online PR - Why you say only newspapers? I don’t have so much experience in this sector of SEO but if I imagine to get outbound links I think on forums, blogs, sites, social…
Comment by Jonathan — January 19, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
Google’s just updated the new universal SERPs again. I saw 10 Map results integrated into the SERPs, seemingly ranked by # of reviews.
Comment by Gab Goldenberg — January 21, 2008 @ 3:02 am
More at this discussion: http://sphinn.com/story/24132
Comment by Gab Goldenberg — January 21, 2008 @ 3:12 am
Re #1 it looks like G is experimenting with showing more than 10 results for locally-oriented searches.
Comment by Local SEO Guide — January 21, 2008 @ 6:54 am
and another reason:
“Developers won’t ever fully understand SEO”
For example one of my PHP develop said:
12 web page = one php file (one title, keyword, …) with one id from 1 to 12
Comment by Alex — January 21, 2008 @ 9:40 am
I totally agree with the “Designers won’t ever fully understand SEO” - It is true in the fact it does seem to be that its moving backwards.
I think you have to put some emphasis on the fact the Client does not always understand seo or what it even is, so a clients tender can sometimes be hard to work to
Comment by Matt Ridout — January 21, 2008 @ 11:31 am
I don’t think SEO will die anytime soon because everyday new sites were created…which also means that the competition for the top spots also tightens…but I agree with Ashwin that after a few years SEO will be empowered and more people will have a lot of knowledge on how to do SEO properly….^^
Comment by Joy — January 21, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
I agree with you Joy. It’ll take a long time for the SEO to lose it’s power. As long as there are sites and search engines, it will stay
Comment by SEO Solutions — January 21, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
SEO may die, if google starts ranking pages only on the basis of the traffic they get for a particular keyword(s)(avg time on the site,bounce rate, total page views, page views/page, no of unique visitors etc), or which are bookmarked the most. Something like digg is doing these days. The website which will get maximum votes will be at the top.
Comment by himanshu — January 22, 2008 @ 10:10 am
People who are good at SEO will always survive, since they will learn new ways to promote and make money for themselves, if it is SMO or something in future. Good people who understand the fundamentals of Industry are always needed at every point of time.
Comment by SEOIndia — January 22, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Let’s also bear in mind that while there are ten spots on a Google page, the numbers typically say that few people click past #3 or 4, i.e. “below the fold.”
Comment by Paul Burani, Clicksharp Marketing — January 23, 2008 @ 12:16 am
Great post. I thin SEO will be around for awhile but will add on SMO, social media optimization, as another way for SEO professionals to help their clients.
Comment by Mystic Liquid — January 23, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
great post.
Comment by Jake — January 24, 2008 @ 4:30 am
No body doesnt knows when SEO DIES.Once it will die all are shifting to another field try to learn more future advance things.Surely u will satisfied with ur job?(this is for only seo employees not for all).
Regards
Chinna
Comment by Chinna — January 29, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
SEO won’t die…but…ppl will me more involved in ‘other’ things in future. Because:
There are only 10 spots (1st page)…If you cant be on top 10…….its practically useless to spend thousands if not millions on ‘SEO’. Because in 10-20 years time…the total number of compeition will double/triple, so will be the amount of searches….But what about the Search Engine? People still feel that google will dominate…and that means you only have 10 spots to play with…. If the top 10 big companies…fill up the top 10 spot (using their huge amount of capital/money) in hand…….the new industries won’t stand a chance..
Google or Any other SE may come up with something new…. (3D/Random/AI SERP) which can create more opportunities…
Comment by SEO Australia — March 10, 2008 @ 2:19 am
Thanks for sharing these are some great points…. at least it’s a motivating thing for newbies… like myself…
Comment by WebDrops — March 28, 2008 @ 12:09 pm