The New Rules of SEO: It's Still About Content

The rules for SEO change constantly. It used to be that the number of inbound links to a website weighed heavily and helped to increase your ranking in the search engines. Nowadays, it’s all about providing unique, relevant content and making sure you’re not “overdoing” SEO, or over optimizing your website.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable quotes Matt Cutts of Google and shares an audio from a panel that Cutts participated in during SXSW:

"...We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO - versus those making great content and great site."

Of course, as always we don’t know the specifics of what kinds of changes Google will make to ensure that search results are relevant. What exactly is “over optimization”? Stoney of Search Engine Journal speculates what this could mean. The consensus among most SEO professionals is that the keywords used within content will be scrutinized - whether it’s placement, keyword density, or the links connected to those keywords.

The Key to Successful SEO

I think the key to being successful with SEO is to not overthink it too much, which brings us back to one of our previous posts, "Why Content Will Remain King For Infinity". The person who writes the content for your site should simply focus on providing useful content that inspires people to want to do business with you. Don’t worry about keywords. Worry more about not sharing helpful information. Worry more about not making a connection with your customers. Worry more about retaining customers and keeping people on your website long enough to convert them into customers.

As you review the copy on your website, always keep in mind that one of the 15 things that people absolutely hate about your website is SEO-driven copy. The flow of your content should be natural. Nothing is more irritating than to read an article or come across a website that contains the same keyword in the title and every single heading.

Besides creating great content, another area of focus is social media and developing meaningful interactions in each community. People do business with people they like and trust. Likewise, people link to content they like and trust. Getting links via social sites may not necessarily count towards SEO, but it will definitely give you brownie points with your customers. After all is said and done, that’s what matters anyway, right?

What are your thoughts about the new “rules” of SEO? If you outsource SEO, do you know what strategies are being used to optimize your site?

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