Some people have been saying that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is dead or at least no longer relevant to the current World Wide Web landscape. Believe it or not, the idea of the ineffectiveness of SEO has been going on all across the web for many years now, and it still creates quite an intense debate among website builders and business owners alike.

Major search engines such as Google and Bing are continually updating their search algorithms, so to say that SEO has changed quite a bit over the years is an obvious understatement. Despite the doubts, many websites or businesses continue to practice various methods of optimizations to increase online visibility and thrive. On the other hand, some who have tried implementing well-known tricks and techniques to acquire top spots in search engine results gain no benefit at all. Now, this begs the question about the specific practices those naysayers did.

 SEO is not math; while it does involve a lot of calculations, the practices do not follow the same formula all the time. When search engines change their algorithms, websites must also implement different optimization methods to stay relevant. Failure to keep up with the changes will render your website invisible.

SEO is not dead. It just evolves and gets better.

When it comes to digital marketing, especially increasing website traffic, you cannot afford to rely merely on links and keywords. While they are still essential parts of today’s SEO practices, there are just many more methods (and therefore works) required to obtain results within reasonable measure. Instead of just focusing on keywords and link-building efforts, today’s version of SEO demands constant attempts on your part of providing real values for visitors, such as user-friendly interface, relevancy to search queries, and useful, informative contents. A strong online presence is also the result of seamless integration with social media (and sometimes) advertising strategies. Having only one or two of those elements will not yield the results you need.

Every algorithm update aims to make the Internet better, more useful, and more effective for those searchers. When people say that SEO is no longer relevant, useful, or even dead, they most likely refer to specific optimization techniques that are now considered obsolete. SEO failed them because they used outdated methods.

Dead SEO Techniques

Older websites probably used the following methods to gain popularity. Still, you cannot merely follow their footsteps because some of those methods are now ineffective (or even bad) for website development. A few examples of dead SEO techniques:

All-out link building

Link building is an important part of SEO, both in the past and present. The most significant difference is that the old method did not care about the sources of the links. You could build or create as many links as you can, and almost certainly, your website would start to rank much higher. In many cases, people made dozens of sites and linked the contents heavily.

In today’s SEO, link quantity is no longer a reliable indicator of a good website. Other authoritative domains will link to an accurate, informative website. If your contents are fresh, well-written, and useful, it is not impossible to get linked by more popular sites.

Aiming for a high number of keywords

Targeting specific keywords remains an effective method to increase page rank, although, in the old days, there was an entirely different approach to that. It used to be that having more content target the same keyword was enough to gain more online exposure, but then search engines knew that it was a bad idea to rank websites based on the number of content they have. Some search engines do not rank an entire website, only individual pages. The new approach is to write a longer post and target multiple keywords instead.

Keywords Overuse

When you have tons of keywords within a single post used to be a great idea, all you needed to do was cramp as many keywords as possible in a relatively short post to reach sufficient keyword density. Search engines now despise the practice.

Appropriately implemented, SEO can do wonders for your website. Some of the most effective methods right now are as follows.

Page readability: not only does the interface need to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, but the contents have to be human-readable. People demand informative content relevant to their search queries, delivered on a website that is pleasing to the eyes in an instant. User experience and value of materials play crucial roles in today’s SEO landscape.

Topic and keywords: a combination of text- and keywords-focused content is preferable. You can use Google Trends to look for recent popular search queries and related keywords. Focus on trending search with low-competition keywords if possible.

 Let’s not forget about the marketing efforts. You must be willing to (slowly) promote your websites to gain popularity. Part of modern SEO is to integrate sites or your profile with social media, online communities, and relevant Internet forums. Be active and promote your ideas throughout the web; now and then, you can create a thread or give answers to others’ questions and link them to one of your pages.