Should SEO'S look for another job ?

by 29 replies
38
During the last year or so with all this algorithm changes the game has shifted out of the hands of SEO's.
By seo's i mean all people who used to do only onpage off page optimizations back linking ect..

Is that enough anymore ?
what do you think ?
You cannot guaranty results to your clients like before and plus the results if any will be months away and not permanent.
Its not a very compelling deal anymore for one to consider.
#search engine optimization #job #seo
  • I think SEO that focuses on backlink building only is definitely in trouble.

    Truth is, websites now need user optimization to do well past a certain point. Many times if you just build links to a client's website they'll get visitors but no conversions. That's because they also need to optimize for conversions.

    The trouble is, the more things they need, the more they have to pay. Link building will still be around for a long time as a service, but the payoff is not as good as it once was.
  • The bigger problem is where positioning yourself as a 'link builder' leaves you.

    It forces you to have sell relatively low-cost packages. If you re-positioned as an 'Internet marketing expert' or 'Content marketer' you can command higher premiums because the work you do is more extensive.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Wait, SEOs have jobs?

    I never understood why people that know what they're doing with SEO would get a real job with an SEO firm. If you know enough to rank a client then you know enough to rank your own properties.
    • [2] replies
    • Perhaps an seo should stick to the traditional seo techniques and try to incorporate something more solid like adwords to deliver results. Thats Google's aim anyway it seems.
      • [1] reply
    • and um who says they don't do both?
  • You are talking about shitty backlinkers, not SEOs.
    • [1] reply
    • not necessarily.
      even top seo's cant deliver fast results or cant guarantee them.
      They need to supplement with additional services to compensate for the uncertain factor.
      The can definitely help,theres no doubt about that is justs it looks that less and less people would want to hire one.
      Why hire someone to try and rank your website while a ppc campaign can do the same faster and possibly with better results.
      • [2] replies
  • Banned
    Should SEO'S look for another job ?

    lol
  • What I would say that we have to focus less on link building and we have to focus more on brand name building, reputation management, only serious sites should be created so that you can focus, you can invest energy and it would give you benefit without any doubt.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • In two years SEO will be pretty much 100% brand and local based. That's the way Google is going, they just cant figure out how to close all the loopholes in the algo that people use to rank affiliate sites, mfa sites, bh stuff, etc.

    You have to also realize that desktop search is losing market share every day. In the future, people will be asking Siri/voice search way more, using social search (FB already has this, Im sure twitter will work on a search play soon), and video of course (Google owns YT).

    Ranking sites will get harder, and may be worth less of your time. So yeah SEO's need to keep that in the back of their mind. You already have FB pages and YT channels that have NO search presence doing 6 figures.... it's only going to get bigger from here.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Better results? Sorry, but PPC is not going to outperform good rankings.

      Plus, if you are not ranking #1, one of your competitors is.

      Have you used Siri or Samsung's voice search? They suck. They are not threat to search in the immediate future. They are awful.

      I disagree about social search. Nobody is going to Facebook to find their new dentist, accountant, vet, attorney, painter, plumber, etc.

      Internet marketers might be squeezed out more and more, but real businesses will still be looking for SEO for a long time.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I've thought about testing that, a niche that isn't GEO based, targeting a bunch of global keywords + local cities.

      Example, If I had a site for the woodworking niche it's relavant to the entire world, so take that woodworking site & drill down to targeted city traffic that's searching for woodworking tools.

      If traffic is located in the Dallas TX (US) area searching for woodworking tools I'm sure it would be easier to target that same traffic for the keyword woodworking tools even though the traffic never actually searches for the local keyword (dallas texas), then repeat for all major cities in the same country.

      When I search on Google for the keyword weather I get results that are based on the GEO location of my ISP, not results for my actual GEO location, my ISP/city is over 50 miles away from me.

      I think I'll test that & see If the search traffic landing on the GEO targeted page (ex: woodworking tools dallas texas) are coming from the target location (Dallas TX) without traffic actually searching for the local keywords dallas texas. Google would know the area that the traffic is searching from, so I think they would favor a web page targeting the same GEO location.
  • What options are out there for a small business owner to receive sales from the internet? Either PPC, banner advertising, SEO or doing SEO themselves... There will always be a market for SEO services unless Google finds a way to rank websites without putting any value in a sites link profile, backlinks or social signals... then of course we will adjust to those changes as we always do.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Indeed, Google NEEDS back links to determine the quality of a site. If it would go blind on content alone, then it would be way too easy to manipulate the SERP's.

      Even user behaviour is very easy to manipulate when it would turn out to be like that. 1000's of services would pop up with fake traffic that acts exactly like Google wants it to be.
  • No SEO could or should EVER guarantee results. Also, SEO is still pretty easy if you know what you are doing. The Google changes have shifted out many of the wannabe's and low quality SEO's which is a good thing.
  • From my point of view in the Australian market all the talk about Penguins, Pandas and SEO being dead has been wonderful for business.

    The publicity has raised awareness in people who couldn't spell S-E-O 12 months ago and are now willing to pay top dollar for it no matter what Google says.

    This new awareness has also created new markets in quality content creation, private site network management, web site editing, local SEO, Google Plus management, video ranking, SEO training and associated niche SEO services.

    And yes, backlinking is still very important. But what has changed is the emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
    • [1] reply
    • So far in the Netherlands my experience unfortunately is not like that. Many people seem to be very ignorant still and do expect wonders for budget prices

      I'm glad to see that the Google updates triggered this rise in niche SEO markets down under. I hope this will happen here as well
      • [1] reply
  • SEO experts will make living till Google and Internet Die! Which is not going to happen in another 100 years to come!
  • I think you need to have access to a good amount of quality blogs where you can place well written content. These need to have good PR and domain authority. Links from these sites will provide the biggest push for your keywords. Next to this you can still linkbuild on the usual low quality directory/social bookmarking/article sites for getting landing pages indexed and targetting longtail keywords. You can forget about achieving high keyword rankings with bulk linkbuilding on low quality sites though, those days are over. If that was your standard method then you may have to consider a new carreer
  • I don't think so. Google will always have to decide ways to rank a site and there will always be clever folks like us to figure out a way to make them happy enough to put us on the first page. Right now it's basically high PR + relevant content. But when it evolves, so will we.
  • As long as Google bases its search results on an algorithm SEO specialists will always have jobs.
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