Were you researching how to choose an company to help your business grow online when you read that ? Well, fake death reports are a thing on the internet sometimes. Just kidding!
Before people could fully figure out what stands for, online myth-factories and naysayers deemed that is dead. Like the real world, the internet is a dynamic place that keeps changing, shunning old practices, and bringing in new ones. It is equally full of myths, especially when it comes to . The reason is that is constantly changing, and that makes it challenging. What people do not understand, they create myths about.
The short answer to the question, ‘Is dead?’ would be no.
isn’t dead. But it’s also an incomplete answer. An company that knows modern practices will tell you how many old practices are dead. ’s algorithms are always evolving. And, what stands for these days has changed from what was before 2014. So, then, it means that some of , for sure. And the rest has evolved. Let’s find out which one is which.
Traditional SEO Is Dead, But, What Was It Even?
Before 2014, talking to an company would be very different from today. It would mean using technical terms like domain authority, keywords, backlinks, and metadata. Some of these are still relevant and will always be. For sure, keywords aren’t going anywhere. But, quite a lot of these practices are now redundant or, worse, damaging to your online presence. Below are tools of , dead or dying, that were once quite popular.
1. Social Bookmarking and Link Directory Submission
High-authority and trustworthy domains with legitimate directories are suitable for your brand. But, in old-school , it meant linking with websites and link directories that exist only to sell backlinks to anyone. This kind of tactic never added any real value to that directory’s users. Today, they are spam and get de-indexed by . So, beware of an company that says spamming is good .
2. Spinning Articles and Press Releases
Earlier, article spinning and PR releases on other websites were regular for an company in the US (or outside). They came with ‘money’ anchor text for . They are not anymore. You cannot have versions of similar for the sake of article directories and hope not to be flagged by . And, if your company is into shady , run!
3. Blog Comments and Automated Link Building
Answering blog comments is excellent, but it must be relevant. What stands for today is different from what an company would do earlier. And, that is why you cannot just submit comments to any with a functioning comment field. Nor can you use automated link-building tools to blast blog comments and other types of links across any number of websites. An company that says these tools are suitable for your is terrible for your business. A manual penalty from should be your worst nightmare.
What Does SEO Stand For In 2021?
From 2010 to the present day, ’s algorithms have changed a lot with one intent: enhancing experiences. Earlier it was about providing relevant . Now, it is more about sharing for lead generation. And, lead-generation does not mean using a ‘BIG SALE!’ ad, even -wise. Driving in traffic means planning your for the long term using . Dead, yes, quite a lot of the older tools and practices are. But in 2021, what stands for is based on user intent and experience.
Here are the 4 major components of what stands for in 2021 (#2 is our favourite):
1. All about the user experience
‘s latest algorithms consider around 200 factors to rank sites on its . Out of them, only a few have worthy results. And they are all about user experience.
How long do the users stay on your site?
How many of you users do not find relevant and leave?
Does your have such great that your page views per unique visitor are high?
These factors tell how users interact with your and how they feel about your . To grow, your business needs an honest person. What does that mean? You need to look for someone who is aware of user experiences and understand how good results in lower bounce rates. There are a lot of things apart from updating the that an company can do to enhance the user experience; you can add infographics; screenshots, graphs, and explainer videos. Visuals increase user engagement on your and improve rankings on ’s result pages.
2. Content that’s intelligent and fun to read
Simply stated, if your company tells you that more generates more traffic, you need to get a second opinion. Volume is good but doesn’t enhance your if it’s not relevant, not focused, not structured, and, well, is mediocre. In older practices, bad was everywhere. This was because stuffing keywords and backlinks everywhere for rankings worked. Though, it made for some really bad reading.
in 2021 requires high- that is enriched with semantic topics that are fun to read while also educating the visitor. A very interesting case study by Olay showed that switching to educational can ramp up sales. Instead of pushing on ads that sold products, Olay shifted to ads with a focus on teaching their users about how to take care of their skin. And just like that, they were able to increase click-throughs by 87% and decrease their cost per click by 30%. And, they also increased their conversions by 100%.
3. Real connections between words and links
decided that user experience was the best metric to weigh the greatness of a . Many of the then-popular practices would classify as black hat today. This is because is focusing more on the ’s reliability. It is them via a complex system called PageRank. It is based on backlinks, domain age, and domain reputation, all of which take time to build.
Quality of backlinks takes a higher precedence than quantity. This means that the more the number of backlinks, the better, yes, but only when they are of good quality. And, you will definitely be in trouble if your is sporting a tonne of poor-quality links. This is bad for automated link-building programs and link schemes that always violated ’s webmaster guidelines. And, as discussed in the previous sections, these days is not okay with black hat strategies
4. Content optimized for voice search
As of November 2021, 27% of the online global population is using voice on mobile, a number that is stated to increase in the future. Earlier, people were more used to typing phrases like “how to choose an company” into the to find answers. Now, you are more likely to ask Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Apple Siri for “how to choose an company”, “find ” or “best company near me.” And, they’re not only looking for places to reach and things to buy.
People look for information, yes, but also education. They use to do a lot of their daily activities. People look up recipes, cooking processes, DIY activities, medical help, lifestyle guidance, social support, tips, and more. Anything that can be answered via question. A good agency is serious about getting your discovered (something loves) and ranked higher up on ’s result page ().
To enhance your for voice means using increasing levels of user intent and context in your . Optimize for local searches by using local . Doing that means quite a few things:
- Using keywords and phrases referring to your location in your ,
- Incorporating landmarks around your business location,
- Adding “near me” in your ,
- Using the titles of local institutions that are relevant to your business,
- Creating concise yet conversational ,
- Using structured data,
- Registering your business in the My Business listing,
- Having a mobile-friendly ,
- Creating that answers your users’ frequently asked questions (FAQs),
How To Choose A SEO Company?
There are so many things changing on each week, and you need to stay on top of it. will keep on evolving with evolving user attitudes. And, for a business to grow it needs to know and adapt to changing user attitudes. And, how do you do that? Ironic as it sounds, you get yourself a company with specialists to help you:
What to look for when hiring an SEO company?
The earlier you hire an company, the better it is. Whether you are redesigning your or getting a new one ready for launch, it is better to have your designers work with your team. That way, your team can make sure that your site is designed right from scratch to be -friendly.
Now, we know, a lot many things go into making a worthy company. It mainly includes in-depth market and competitor research, knowledge of how to use to grow a business, a track record of increasing blog traffic, and dependable and agnostic leadership that comes with complete transparency. But, how to know which company fits your business the best?
The trick is to ask the right questions.
Some important questions that you could ask are:
1. To check out the SEO company’s history, start with these questions:
- Since when has the company been in business?
- Have they developed international sites before?
- Would the company be able to share its previous successes and examples of earlier work?
- What is the company’s experience in your industry/country/city?
2. To see if your company follows legitimate SEO practices and knows what your business needs:
- How important is to your company?
- Do they also pay attention to and ?
- Does the company follow the Webmaster Guidelines?
- What are the most important techniques to grow your business?
- To complement organic business, do they provide any online services, such as ?
- Will the company be doing a technical or audit of your or not?
- What kind of tangible results can you hope for?
- By when will you know how successful the team was?
These questions will help you find out if the company you are interviewing is using legitimate practices or not.
3. To see how responsive the SEO company is going to be:
- Will they give you detailed information about their recommendations and the reasoning behind them?
- What are your chances of communicating with the team?
- Will they share all the changes they make to your site with you?
These questions will allow you to understand whether your company will remain in sync with your goals. Communication is key. You need to make sure that your company will provide a reasonable amount of back and forth communication.
Other SEO Key Performance Metrics
A good company will ask you questions. This is another key performance metric (KPI) when choosing an company to work with. These are 5 questions you should get asked by your expert before working with them:
- Have you used before? If yes, how was your experience?
- What makes your business unique and valuable to customers?
- What is your customer base? What are your competitors like?
- Do you simply want to grow your business via or ? Or do you want more?
- Do you use any other advertising channels? Would you like to?
The right questions will lead you to the best company for your business. Before you choose, check for references or a track record of your company. Past client reviews or education presented as value are good signs of experience
How do you choose an SEO Company?
A great sign is if your company can forecast or estimate the amount of improvement that your will undergo and provide you with a timeline for it. And, yes, beware of any people who “promise” you a place in the first place in . If they do, you need to decide which way to exit from. At MK Way, we often mention that we need to get to the first page of – where 90% of the traffic goes. Stating the obvious and creating a plan to get there are two different steps.
A few things that you need to understand and take into your stride before you hire are:
- Commit to the changes recommended by your team.
- Recommended changes will take time and effort for great cannot be fast-forwarded.
- If you are not ready to put in the time and effort, might not help, and you should consider Paid Ads, or a strategy with a shorter pay-back period and higher ROI (return on investment).
So, are you ready for ?
Here is another happy customer enjoying organic visitors, where we worked on and ; even when we stopped working with them their traffic climbed before finding a new height.
If you are a small business owner with a restricted budget, Get a proposal from MK-Way. When you work with us, you get a “CMO” (Chief Officer), and not another sales rep who sells you services to meet their monthly sales quota. We’re an company based on transparency and empathy .
