Will Google+ Kill SEO?
You may have heard that Google launched its new “Google+” social network/social platform/Facebook killer yesterday.
Awesome, right? But, as with all things at the intersection of social and search, Google’s latest venture into social media begs the question: Is this the end of SEO? Is SEO (once again) dead?
No. Not even close. SEO—search engine optimization, if you’re unfamiliar—has always been about developing great content that’s relevant to its intended audience. Sometimes that intended audience consists of the search engines and sometimes it’s people linking to that content. Google+ doesn’t change that one bit. Has Facebook killed SEO? No. It’s encouraged companies and individuals to create content that others will want to share with their friends, fans and followers. Since the Like is the new link, SEO practitioners continue to update their tactics and techniques to attract those Likes and links. Maybe they’ll do so in a different way. But they’ll continue to do so.
My father’s father was a carpenter, a tradesman. I have a number of his tools in his garage, sitting in a tool box he built. Planes and hand drills and hammers. All manual. And, for the most part, all have been replaced among modern carpenters by smaller, lighter, powered equivalents.
SEO is a tool, one of many tools in a modern marketer’s toolkit. As social and search continue to connect, SEO tools will adapt and change, just like those of carpenters and tradesmen. But SEO is going nowhere. We’re just going to find more efficient hammers.
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I think SEO in 5 years from now will be less about technical details but much more about creating the best content. I don’t think Google + changes it that much. Google’s possibilities to actually get an idea of how useful a website is to a visitor is much more of a game changer (i.e. tracking the users’ behaviour through Google Analytics, Chrome etc.).
SEO definitely won’t be killed but it will be quite different.
Hi Robert,
I tend to agree. Though, when discussing how Google will track users’ behavior, don’t forget Google+. Facebook has a great window into consumers’ wants/needs/desires due to their near ubiquitous “Like” button. Once more customers start using Google+ and “telling” Google directly what they like, I would expect that to rapidly work its way into Google’s algorithms. Still, that only underscores how important great content is going to be.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the great comment!
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