Is SEO a Dying Industry?
A "link bait" title? Absolutely. But good nonetheless.

A couple of teaser quotes;

Some people are still in denial. I still have SEO snake oil salesmen calling me trying to sell me link trading services.

If you want a long term SEO strategy, guess where your focus should be? Yes, your branding. Forget the typical SEO tricks; focus instead on building your brand to a position where Google WANTS you on the front page of results.

Read it. Think about it. Read it again and again until what he is saying sinks in!!

I read the article this morning. I don't see SEO dying at all though. Changing yes, but dying no.

The issue is what people think SEO is. To me it's always been about doing your best to understand what search engines want and then giving it to them. My SEO strategy has been focused on building my brand instead of looking for tricks.

I still consider that part of SEO so I don't see it is a dying industry.

I think the main issue is the term SEO has different meanings to different people yet people still try to group everyone into one big lump. So some see a very limited part of SEO and decide it's the whole thing. That one part might be dying, but the industry as a whole will continue.

To be fair, Shoemoney should be the one credited with the linkbait title. After all, MarketingPilgrim just wrote about it based on Jeremy's comment yesterday.

Yea agree with tamar, actually Shoemoney had written a big link bait post about future of SEO, stating that SEO has no future. That spread all around the blogosphere!

True. Isn't this twice now that Shoe has used the anti-seo linkbait idea recently?

He's just following Jason's lead on easy ways to get tons of traffic and links.. More power to him..

Originally Posted by vangogh

True. Isn't this twice now that Shoe has used the anti-seo linkbait idea recently?

If he tries it for 3rd time too, it will result into a god link bait once again. But the topic of discussion was so interesting.

I think the whole discussion really comes down to how you define SEO. If your definition of SEO is in the strictest sense of leaning toward making a few coding changes or quick methods of building links to manipulate search ranking, then yeah it's probably dieing.

However if your definition of SEO is more a holistic one encompassing general marketing, usable design and development, and understanding what search engines want so you can give it to them, then no SEO isn't dieing and will be around for a long time.

My definition falls with the latter and so I think SEO has a strong future.

Well put vangogh...

As I see it SEO is an evolving industry. Many of todays SEO "methods" are basically nothing more than conning search engines into placing site B above site A, but wonderful as this is for the site owner (and the SEO's ego), the consumer doesn't always get the best sites for their search a lot of the time.

Search engine's know this and even they are looking at methods of delivering what they think are the most relevant sites - this in effect means that most of the artificial methods of getting high positions may well become redundant overnight, and as a result searches should become more relevent for the end user (the most important person). (I did see an article about this but can't find the link)

I see things swinging away from emphasis on keywords, titles and the rest of it to actually making results to useful, popular, and relevent sites, which in the end is better for the consumer - who here likes clicking on a no1. result only to find a generic Made For Adsense site full of crappy articles bought for $5?

I have read that article, and seems interesting cause to predict something needs a good knowledge of SEO and be smart too. Difficult to have both.

I think the problem continues to be that only 10% of all "SEOs" really knows what SEO is. I cannot tell you how often I get emails on my mainstream blogs from "SEO service providers" purporting to make my site(s) rank higher. Honestly, those are the people who are in the biggest rut and those are the guys who prove that SEO has no future (for them, it does not).

But in any event, this is linkbait at its best, and hey, you can't blame Jeremy for trying

Originally Posted by tamar

I think the problem continues to be that only 10% of all "SEOs" really knows what SEO is. I cannot tell you how often I get emails on my mainstream blogs from "SEO service providers" purporting to make my site(s) rank higher. Honestly, those are the people who are in the biggest rut and those are the guys who prove that SEO has no future (for them, it does not).

But in any event, this is linkbait at its best, and hey, you can't blame Jeremy for trying

Yep Jemery can't be blamed.

Anyways also have to agree with the point that the so-called SEO companies mostly don't know what basic SEO is.