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In today’s world, the most difficult thing to do is to make things simple. You would also agree to the same. It has took some of the productive years to come up with tools and applications that let us do things at our comfort. And, the companies which have tried to make our life easy have went through difficult times. They have succeeded, but at a cost. This cost is what we are talking about now, i.e. is SEO dead?
Google’s primary objective is to provide smooth experience to the users. But, this is not correct to as now even Google is landing inadvertently at crossroads with others. Do you know, why is this happening? Yes, that is especially because all the competing websites are trying to woo themselves into Rank one on Google. So, it won’t be wrong to say Google’s organic search is dying. However, the interesting part of this question is not the answer, but the question itself. Let’s look into it.
The Death of SEO?
Is SEO dead or not is an inevitable argument. Because the answers are both yes and no. If you look around, all of us are taking break from our regular activities and tying other things. And, if you are wondering what I am referring to than this is none other than technologies like ‘Alexa’. Yes, there are other things also involved in it. Well, the death of SEO is upon us as we are paying to Google Ads for all of the traffic that we lost from organic sources. So, just looking into the current scenario, we are comfortably say that SEO is alive and kicking. This pattern will undoubtedly, continue, now what we have to look here is what we has changed?
How machine Learning is impacting on Organic Search?
Let’s just go back for a while. Google’s success is not at a question of confusion, it is successful, and more importantly relevant. And, the reason behind the Google’s success is that they know when to adapt to the changing technological landscape.
Essentially there are two main parts where they have m0ved ahead. Those are:
- Implementation of Hummingbird Algorithm
- Implementation of Machine Learning Technologies
Hummingbird may be a thing of past, while machine learning is something by which Google is trying to shape the technologies around. However, they both are inter-related. Machine learning is related to SEO and its usage needs the Hummingbird algorithm to achieve its potential. Hummingbird is the algorithm that helped Google to create the foundation to understand informal speech. Its primary purpose of hummingbird algorithm is to enable Google to appreciate entities and ideas rather than words.
How organic space is getting vanished?
We have seen some of the dramatic changes is the past few years. These changes have altered the organic space that was available on Google’s front page. Let’s look some of those things:
- Voice Assistants like Alexa: Alexa is very good at providing you a single answer to your questions. You search for a question on Google and it provides you with not so needed featured snippet. That may not be helpful to you it has earn you a click-through. This has invaded the organic space of Google.
- Google is taking commercial space: We have got websites for each and every query of us. There is Expedia, Travelocity, Cheapflights and many more, which are helping us to know what we are looking for. But, Google says we are here, don’t click anything else.
- The paid listings: This will be a surprise for you. Google is spotted in a paid result along with two organic results, when you take the local 3-pack.
- New zero-result SERPs: Yes, it happened in few cases that Google showed zero-results. Google rolled them back after rolling them out. So if you are searching something with zero organic results, nothing for an SEO to even optimize for in there, it is impacting.
Is overlooking SEO is an option?
Give any argument, but SEO cannot be overlooked at any cost. Most of the people are using internet through their mobile phones rather than through their desktops to Google the queries. If you believe, the fact that majority of the search enquires have been reported from mobiles and tablets rather than from the computer. So, how come SEO can be dead? SEO is alive and kicking. Also, this is due to the efforts of Google itself, as it is providing brands and websites with mobile-friendly versions. So, nowadays, brands and owners of website are creating mobile-friendly websites to make sure their users experience a great comfort. SEO plays an important role even if the website is using a paid version. Google only allows websites with good quality content to rank higher.
Even, the introduction of voice typing and voice searching on Google has helped the SEO to flourish more. As a result of this, it is mandatory for the websites to bring in real speech designs into their short-tail and long-tail keywords. With these patterns and technology growing in SEO, undoubtedly, it will gain prominence in the years to come.
Solutions for marketers
Marketers need to start thinking about what can they do we do to compete and provide value for their clients? Here are few things:
- Investing in demand generation of brand: Brand-value is important and investing in demand generation could result in good Google rankings. Adopt new styles and patterns that Google has introduced such as little one box, card-style list result, the carousel and many more.
- Optimization of content: In the Local space, optimize in such a way that searchers want to engage with you. And, if you are falling in zero-results, make use of AdWords to stay ahead.
Conclusion
So, I am closing on note that only good informative content is not the key but great SEO practices enable you to secure the position in Google rankings. The article perfectly tell you want the death of SEO is not possible in current scenario.
What are your thoughts on the death of SEO?
