Yes it is true, with the advent of personalized search where everyone sees a different search results page based on their accumulated search history and social media site interaction, search engine optimization as we have known it over the years is dead.
In fact, it is so dead that we have dropped our subscription to WordTracker and removed SEO services from our website. Yes, that means it is really dead. There is no more keyword stuffing, over optimization, or special code massaging that provide organic search placement. Now it is about building content that is focused on your services and building “web authority”.
In fact, with personalized search the keyword research tools that we previously used to assist in identification of good keywords to cover and niches to target have all pretty much gone away. WordTracker used to be one of the best, but is now in my eyes simply a keyword discovery tool and the AdWords tool does a pretty good job at that for free.
So what’s the key now to good organic placement? Well, first it is important to know that what I see in the top ten will not be what you see and so on and so on. There are some results that Google seems to show consistently for all search users, but it is not as it was where if you were in the number three position, we all saw you at number three. Those days are long gone.
What we recommend now for organic placement is that make sure your website works for you and focuses tightly on your products and services. Using brainstorming techniques and results from your website analytics program to identify your keyword targets, build content and backlinks activity, get blogging, do quarterly press releases, and do a white paper or feature article once or twice a year. If you are not active in Facebook now, make sure you have a Facebook Fan Page in the next six months. All these things working together for you build your site and insulate you from organic placement drops that sometime previously popular SEO tactics, when they fall from favor, may bring.
You can still place organically, but not using the same tactics that we used to use before. That’s for sure!