SEO has become a widely adapted marketing strategy. But, the changing landscape of digital marketing gave raise to question – is SEO still an Effective marketing strategy?

Based on my personal experience, I still believe that SEO is effective for a number of reasons. In earlier days, the main objective of SEO is to identify the keywords that are relevant to your business. There used to be 5-6 keywords that were considered as golden keywords. SEO made it easier for Search engines to find high-quality content. The key point of finding quality content is to help customers get answers to the questions that lead to a business outcome or product purchase.

There is a misconception among people that SEO is not as effective as before and is dead. However, digital marketers and SEO consultants still believe that SEO is effective and helps in driving huge traffic to your website. A good SEO strategy is quite beneficial and effective in generating huge traffic. Many people ask me how much time it takes for SEO to work effectively. The question is born from understanding that SEO was very effective once, but is not now.

There has been a lot of controversy around whether SEO is effective or not. Those who observe online marketing tactics say that it is content that drives traffic and not SEO. However, to make a mark on search engine results, both SEO and high-quality content should exist in harmony. Here are a few reasons why SEO is still effective and plays an important role in enhancing the visibility of websites.

• Search engines are changing their algorithm for better

There are a number of things that affect the SEO rankings such as – excess keyword stuffing, spamming, low-quality content etc. The new algorithm of Search Engines has improved the search engine rankings, as a result of which websites with lots of keywords does not offer real value to the searches.  Google will actually penalize such sites with low-quality content or excess keywords. These updates of Google algorithm has made it mandatory for websites to publish high-quality content. These changes increased the value of SEO, as websites are practicing SEO trends to match the requirements of the algorithm.

The black hat SEO techniques that were once used are no more used now. Search engines are doing this to make sure that the users are receiving only the best and more accurate search results.

• SEO is never overlooked

There are many large companies that receive most of the search queries from mobile, instead of desktop or laptop. It’s now necessary to have a mobile responsive website. This dramatic change in the way people search for information made it mandatory for websites to match certain standards, especially if they want their content to be identified by search engines. There are many aspects that influence the way people search for any particular information.

When the website is optimized in such a way that it is loaded quickly, it has a positive impact on the website ranking. This will keep your website ahead of millions of websites.

• SEO enhances user experience

SEO plays a very important role in enhancing user experience and this is one of the important reasons why SEO is still an effective technique. The user experience is of peak importance when it comes to search engine ranking. Websites that load quickly and are easy to navigate are known to have a great user experience. This great user experience allows users to find, access and absorb high-quality content.

SEO is very important and helps a lot in enhancing the user experience. Using sitemaps, navigation tools, and high-quality content, appropriate keywords etc are a part of SEO and contribute a lot to increase the user experience. When using these SEO strategies, the information within the website is exchanged in terms of content. Sitemaps make it easier for users and search engines to crawl the website, contributing a swift search experience.

• SEO helps in organic search

Millions of people browse the internet every day and search for information on various topics. Google analyzes more than 3.5 billion searches per day. This figure is expected to rise a lot higher with the increasing number of mobile devices.  A great percentage of organic searches are generated through mobiles. All these strategies are an important part of SEO strategy and for this reason, we can say SEO is still effective.

Companies that look to attract a major percentage of online traffic should focus more on SEO campaigns. No doubt, SEO helps in driving huge organic traffic to your website.

• Attractive meta description and keywords

Killer titles and keywords always attract visitors, as humans usually get attracted towards catchy titles. Many bloggers and SEO experts do significant research on blog titles and create catchy titles with appropriate keywords. If anyone will ask me, I will suggest them to include the primary keyword in the title.

Many people have the habit of reading the Meta description below the title that is displayed on search engine results page. Writing attractive Meta description is an SEO strategy and increases the click through rate. This shows that SEO strategies are still effective and are crucial in improving the search engine results.

• Increasing number of smart marketers

There is a great increase in the number of SEO experts, digital marketers, web designers and other SEO professionals. People believe that SEO is not effective, as the professionals won’t be able to make necessary changes to the way search engines work. The ingredients to the quality website are clearer than ever before. As a result of which, web designers and SEO experts are becoming much familiar with the best SEO practices. They are becoming smarter than ever before and trying to do their best in terms of using SEO techniques.

Whether it is in terms of using keywords, on-page optimization, link building or content optimization, internet marketers are trying to use the best SEO practices.

Conclusion

Many businesses may choose to neglect their SEO efforts, as they think the search engines change quickly. SEO ranking algorithms have made higher ranking on search engines a bit complex. However, marketers can adapt to these changes to make SEO relevant for them.

SEO is still effective, as there are many benefits of SEO in digital marketing. Businesses need to familiarize themselves on how to make the best use of SEO and have a great impact on their ROI. SEO tools should be frequently updated to tackle with the changing digital marketing trends.

According to me – SEO will be alive till the date search engines are present. It is expected to become more competitive with time to enhance user experience.

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