Saw yet another article recently predicting the death of SEO.
(That’s Search Engine Optimization – which deals with getting your website ranked high in the search engines – for you dudes and dudettes who aren’t up on industry jargon).
It could just as easily have been about the death of email marketing. Or Facebook marketing. Or Pay Per Click advertising.
Articles like this have been littering cyberspace for years.
But, guess what… everything they’ve proclaimed was dead is still very much alive and kickin’.
See, these articles are almost always articles written by some clueless self-proclaimed online marking ex-spurt hungry for attention.
If they were honest they’d give the article a title like…
… “SEO Isn’t As Easy As It Used To Be And the Spammy Tactics I Used to Use Aren’t Working Anymore”
Or
… “I Read This Article About How SEO Doesn’t Work Written By Some Other Clueless Dotard and Am Going To Regurgitate It For You Here.”
It’s true…
… SEO used to be as easy as a shotgun safari in a sheep pasture.
Put up a site. Add your keyword(s) to it. Send some spammy links to it. And, wallah… Page 1 rankings!
No more my friends.
Now you gotta work for it.
Create a lot of quality content. Structure your pages and site the right way. Earn quality links from quality sites. And have a lot of patience.
Which is too hard for the SEO hacks who were doing it in the days of yore.
Once it became clear they actually had to work at it, most of ‘em disappeared like ethics in the halls of Congress.
The truth is SEO is still around. SEO still works.
As does email. And Facebook. And PPC.
(And, by the way, as does direct mail, cold calling and the Yellow Pages.)
There are no shortage of tactics you can use to market your biz.
And, as I’ve said before and will say again…
… ANY and ALL of the tactics out there can and do work.
WHETHER they work or not, however, comes down to the strategies, messaging and offers behind the tactics.
So if SEO, Facebook advertising, email marketing, etc. ain’t workin’ for ya… don’t leave ‘em for dead.
Instead, zap ‘em back to life with the defib paddles for your business’ failing heart… good ol’ direct response marketing strategy.
