SEN Forum Pick: Is Traditional SEO Dead?
 by Kristi Hagen

SEN Forum Top Pick: Increasing Website Traffic

I would be interested in people's opinions on whether SEO is dead. I have been reading a number of blogs and emails stating that applying SEO no longer effects ranking in Google. Companies such as SEOMOZ, MajesticSEO and SEOBraintrust have all dropped SEO from their names. Is this just coincidence or do they know something else? Google seems to be focusing more on human engagement factors such as videos and less on traditional SEO techniques. Is it still worth applying standard SEO? I'd be interested in other people's ideas.

neilmason:

I see I asked a similar question before, and have read the response. So, the question is why am I getting so little traffic? I research the keywords I should use in my articles and my SEO tools rank them from Very Hard to Very Easy. I have started to choose the keywords that are very easy to rank for and have seen just a little bit more traffic. Input appreciated. Thanks.

johnheard SEN's Head Researcher:

Well you're right in that people don't use that term as much, and that makes sense to a certain extent. SEO has changed, but it certainly hasn't gone away. Marketing a web site has become far more involved than it was back in the 90's when this all started. From optimizing your Google My Business page to marking up your content with schema.org,, managing social accounts, it's got far more complex.

Today's "SEO" has many different hats to wear, there is no "standard SEO" really, your traditional SEO of optimizing Title Tags, body content, site structure, etc. is still much needed, but it's certainly not all that must be managed for the businesses in 2015.

martyschmidt:

Hi Neil,

It's an interesting question. I think there's a case to be made for answering either "Yes" or "No." The correct answer for any one site depends, I think, on whether or not the site has serious competition in searches.

On the one hand, SE's—especially Google—seem to be evolving towards the point where the main thing that matters is quality content and, as you mention, engagement factors. SEs just keep getting better at dishing up engaging pages that really provide what people are looking for. I know and work with peopl...

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