As we’ve discussed in past blog posts about how social media is now one of the leading factors in improving your SEO,  we’ve been adapting our SEO strategies to emphasize more social media activity and less anchor text links.  This was in response to Google’s announcement  in August of 2013 that they plan to consider anchor text links, and press release links in particular,  as violations of Google’s guidelines.

SEO COMPETES WITH PPC

This announcement by Google was extremely disappointing but not surprising given the fact that Google is not out to help anyone when it comes to SEO,  Here’s why:

As a professional Internet marketer who practices SEO for our clients, my company directly competes with Google.  Think about it.  The more successful I am at getting your pages to rank organically on page one of Google the less money you’re apt to spend on pay per click advertising to achieve the same ends.

Every Panda, Penquin or other colorfully named animal update to Google’s search algorithms is just another attempt at a cat and mouse game aimed at keeping everyone guessing about what is and is not effective for gaining relevant search engine traffic.

IS GOOGLE PURPOSELY MISLEADING?

What I have come to realize is that some of Google’s information is actually misinformation and disinformation for the sole purpose of keeping everyone guessing about what really works and what doesn’t.  For example, while I constantly hear about how keywording page copy combined with META tags is no longer effective, we’re still seeing positive results from those efforts.

While everyone talks about how “Content is King” blah, blah, blah and how great content will attract natural links and social media interaction, we all know that for most businesses, just waiting around for people to link to you and have your content found is a slow going and pain staking process that really does not jive with most people’s real-world business objectives.  “Yeah, let’s write 50 “great” blog posts a year and hope people find them. ”  Because let’s face it —- without goosing the search engines to find and index your content it’s just not going to happen magically and organically to any degree that will impact your business in a timely way.

WHAT STILL WORKS

So while the search engines like Google would have you believe that “simply” creating great content is the answer, I say it’s like one hand clapping.  Yes, you have to create good, RELEVANT content aimed at your prospects and clients.  But you also have to be proactive to get your message found in the first place.  That’s why we continue to focus on META tags and Title tags, keyword density, ALT tags, image names, site maps, judicious use of anchor text links and an increasing use of social media distribution.

And while Google will keep changing the rules (or say they’re changing the rules) it’s up to SEO practitioners like me to keep doing what works while trying new things and let the results speak for themselves.