SEO is dead? Good SEO strategy and quality content is still valid

Chris Dixon wrote an article, "SEO is dead: entrepreneurial enterprises difficult to use SEO to get more browsing", said that search engine optimization is no longer a viable business enterprise marketing strategy. The original is here. (the author is co-founder of Hunch, an American consumer creative website, and an entrepreneurial website such as Skype, Foursquare and StackOverflow.) )

　　Chris Dixon's argument is:

1. Although most successful information Web sites have grown at first, they rely on SEO, including Yelp, Wikipedia. But in many startups that he has communicated with, almost no one has gained a lot of traffic through SEO after 2008 years.

2. Startups that launch aggressive SEO strategies will not focus on creating a superior user experience.

3. The existence of large-scale illegal black hat (black-hat) SEO Consultants, they specialize in trading and selling links, and through SEO technology to help "content farm" and other enterprises to promote low quality content.

4. Google seems to be sparing no effort to improve its algorithm so that the best content is ranked first in search results.

"SEO is a trustworthy marketing strategy for startups and companies that have grown," says Danny Sullivan. The following is his analysis. (The author is Search engine Research blog Search Engine Land editor, third Door Media partner and chief content officer.) )

　　SEO is not the only way

15 years ago I wrote the article, advising webmasters to make the site content for search engines and readers are friendly: Search engine is the first way people find a site, but not the only way. There are word of mouth, traditional advertising, traditional media, news group posts, web directories and links. Most of the time these approaches are more efficient than search engines. The user may be from a partner's website or a magazine you never mentioned. After a little effort on the search engine, focus on other areas.

　　The fickle search engine

In my career, I've seen a lot of people who ignore these suggestions. I've also written several times to describe the vagaries of search engines, advising people not to just start their careers on it. Google's Florida update has made many people aware of this, but I think we need to keep an eye on the next generation of adjustments. (Technode Note: Florida update is Google in early November 2003, the ranking algorithm began a drastic update, it lasted several months, swept the original rankings of many sites, so many sites in the upcoming Christmas shopping gold time to lose a large number of tourists. This large-scale adjustment is Google's counterattack black-hat seo to make spam sites to obtain an illegal ranking of the historic battle. )

Web site in farmer update traffic drop is not really new, not only Google has many large-scale adjustment algorithm, before the excite, InfoSeek, Lycos and AltaVista these search engines have done similar things. (Technode Note: Farmer update also called Panda Update, is Google is expanding for content farms shallow-content site algorithm adjustment, it will be some large content farms blacklisted, other sites based on data to analyze, There are also external personnel to carry out manual evaluation and other methods. )

　　SEO still play a role for large and small enterprises

SEO is dead? The reality is that there are a large number of sites, whether large or small, whether the entrepreneurial web site or has grown up, they have done very well in SEO. After multiple algorithms, they can still get a lot of visitors with SEO. For startups, SEO can be seen as a good way to jump into a surge in user volume. But neither startups nor other companies should be overly reliant on SEO as part of a series of portfolio marketing strategies.

　　Socialization

The interesting thing is that in recent years social media has grown into a competitor for search engines in the source of web traffic. The flow of cake is a bit bigger than it used to be, and social media has contributed an unprecedented chunk.

Some websites have published data showing that they have gained more traffic from social media. This sounds great, but it's also risky: social media is not a marketing channel you can directly control, and factors beyond your influence can lead to collapse. Make sure you don't put your eggs in one basket and keep it diversified.

　　Linking policies

I agree with Dixon's view that Google prefers to have some sites that are longer established and that allow spam links. Maybe it will change because Google adjusts the algorithm and adds social media content to the search results, but now we still have 20% to 40% visitors from the search, which is a big part of the visitor.

　Good SEO strategy and quality content is still valid

SEO does not work for quality content? Puff, we have a lot of quality content here, and thousands of readers come through the search engine every day. This is not black-hat SEO caused, not link strategy, nor because there is a good domain name. In fact, it's because everyone should do it. Is your site friendly enough for search engines? Have you ever worked on the title tag of the article? Have you considered the copyright of the content? Most important: Do you have any good content?

If you are a start-up company, take Dixon's advice, and don't expect SEO to lead you straight to the IPO. We have to deal with the fact that a lot of startups don't get the final success because they are a new and uncertain business and may not be as good as they think.

However, do not ignore the SEO. If you really don't want the free traffic that the search engine brings, then use a robot.txt document to screen out the search crawler and give the space to others.