The Future Of SEO: Insight From Semalt

A lot of trends are influencing online marketing field, where search algorithms are changing every now and then. Thus, marketers are wondering whether the search engine optimization (SEO) will remain relevant in the next decade. Over the past years, digital marketers were relying on keywords and link building to market their content through online platforms. Nowadays, marketers are solely relying on SEO and search engines to drive traffic, increase conversions, and boost the number of sales.

Search marketers will change their SEO strategies, Google will change the algorithms, but SEO will never die. SEO has been transforming due to the changes in Google's algorithms. In search engine optimization, clients work against each other, just like in a race where racers compete with each other, but only one of them wins.

Ryan Johnson, the Customer Success Manager of Semalt Digital Services explains what factors are fostering SEO transformation and what is the future of it.

The birth of SEO and early stages of Google

Google was firstly established as a self-driven engine that gives results basing on a number of factors. Digital marketers started using Google after the introduction of ranking algorithms. Along with this, SEO has made a debut as a cheat for the Internet, but not as a marketing strategy.

Manipulative practices were involved in ranking algorithms, as cheaters took the advantage of this practice by repeating a number of keywords in their content as many times as possible. The introduction of algorithm updates and code of revisions by Google caught up on cheaters making them unable to continue with the practices.

In 2003, Google introduced authoritative inbound links that help tracking and penalizing sites that duplicate content from the web and repeat keywords an enormous number of times out of the context.

The current state of SEO and Google

More complex algorithms put forward by Google had made SEO reach a point of stability by 2010. However, SEO experienced a turn-over again due to the launch of Panda update in 2011 and Penguin update in 2012. Panda update was using filler content, keyword-stuffed content, and duplicated material to boost sites ranks. On the other hand, the Penguin update introduced mechanics that penalized links posted with a sole aim of boosting rankings.

Recently, Google introduced factors that determine rankings of sites, signals of social media platforms, and the SSL encryption. For one to attain a high ranking, a client has to work on quality content and inbound link profile. The primary goal of every Google algorithm update is to generate reliable results.

The future of SEO in the online business

SEO has upgraded in comparison to the past, where it was regarded as a cheat code. The future of SEO goes hand in hand with Google developments. Nowadays, Google works on providing users with useful and relevant information. The survival of SEO must also shift towards Google's grand intentions, where marketers must provide users with relevant information.

A lot of speculations have been revolving around the death of SEO. In future, SEO will be focusing on giving users memorable and valuable experiences, rather than focusing on back-links and keywords. Continue refining your SEO strategy as soon as there always will be changes applied to search algorithms.