SEO dead?

[EGOL]

It was a shoot-from-the-hip article done with zero research so that yada yada yada writing could get him content in under an hour.

Same type of content as discussed here...

http://www.seomoz.org/q/i-want-to-know-if-this-is-bogus-or-not

[David_ODonnell]

"SEO is dead" is the internet version of the boy who cried wolf.

What it takes to create a well optimized website is constantly changing and expanding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing IMO.

[Intergen]

Don't worry Igor - SEO isn't dead but the way we do SEO is always evolving.  I have "tested" lots of ways to do SEO - some good and some not so good.

But I have arrived at what I know works and the Fortune article is correct IMO on a couple of items.

I launched a new brand about 1-1/2 years ago.  We were able to put over 100,000 users on the product, get over 220 earned press mentions (without a PR agency) and win 3 industry awards within 11 months.

What did I NOT do?

• I didn't even optimize the web pages for search terms.
• I tried PPC and it failed miserably - the vertical I was going after apparently hates PPC - go figure.
• No PR agency - they are overpriced and get so-so results.  Sorry just my experience working with 4 of them.
• I didn't buy even one link.

What did we do? Exactly what the Fortune article points out and a few extras....

• Our biggest winner by far was building relationships with other companies (20 years in the industry) in the vertical we were new to. It now provides anywhere from 30 - 50% of all of our new users.
• A solid Content Marketing strategy.  We created solid value and content and packed the site full of extremely valuable Free Resources. We hired an expert in the vertical and they did webinars and events for the new partners at no cost - we re-purposed this content and dropped it onto social sites as well as our site. We had a blog that was updated regularly with industry relevant info etc etc etc
• As far as outreach we had a strong social media plan and a dedicated and an experienced social manager. We were able to connect and build online relationships that translated into many articles, back links and natural SEO which was always our goal.  No link building was done at all beyond the natural links we received.
• We attended industry events and conferences and had speakers at all of the events.  We had booths at the events and had pre, during and post event strategies ready to go weeks before the events. We even had a guide of the top 15 infuencers that we wanted to meet and everyone from our company had a picture, bio and knew the "likes and dislikes" of each influencer. We connected with 12 of them at one event - this resulted in tweets, FB engagement, blog posts etc. = links (natural SEO).

These were just a few of the tactics and strategies we used.  Did it support SEO for us? Sure, in the new sense of the word.  I think SEO is evolving and getting truly engaged in your niche, vertical and industry are key.  Find the thing that you really want to drive to be the best in and go for it.  I think this is the new SEO - you will get links that you could have never bought, you will get exposure that a PR firm could have never secured and by gosh you may even succeed

[RobertFisher]

I was going to ignore all until I read this, so I will respond to the thread separately.

But, in your response to Igor, you state you essentially ignored on page optimization, failed at PPC, and used no PR agency. (and no bought links).

Then you state you did other marketing outside of web based: relationships, events, conferences and that worked.

So, here is my question: If you were going to go to this tremendous effort (and include social, content, etc. What was the purpose/reason for not doing on page optimization utilizing key words significant to the page?)  
Do you get business from your site? Is it driven by a query on a search engine?

To go to the trouble of creating dynamic content and then ignore basic SEO is anathema to me.

I did like all the rest though.

[RobertFisher]

Ryan, as usual you and EGOL do a masterful job here. I do want to add one thing though: While Ken and Adam may have never heard of you, I have. This was an attempt at getting links by a couple of pikers. Sorry, that's how I see it. Frankly, I think:

THE UNINFORMED POSTING STUPID BLOGS TO OLD MEDIA SITES FOR LINKS IS DEAD!!!

Was tempted to link to something here.....

[RobertFisher]

EGOL,

As to forbes and you doing the SEO: I have sent them a letter telling them they would!

[EGOL]

Nice work on making this successful without search engines.

It's not too late to optimize those pages.  You might make a lot more money.

[Intergen]

Yes you are correct it is anathema.  However it was the best use of our time with the resources we had when we were getting started.

We have gone back and optimized our site. But we knew we could more/quicker results with the path we took.  Also, early on we started with a series of landing pages rather than a website - tested the concept (incl. PPC) and validated our hypothesis before we built a website.

But that definitely has me thinking that I should also go back and give PPC another try now that there is a website backing it up.

And finally another reason was that all of our clients were teachers.  They were looking for freebies but we found that many would not complete reg - no matter what method we used. They weren't sure of who we were - brand new to the education vertical - so even if we did rank on Google I don't think it would have mattered much at that time (now it does).

So partnering with a 20+ year education industry veterans gave us the street cred. with the teachers.  Also, teachers hearing from influencers in education were more likely to sign up rather than going through a Google search or PPC.

The first 6 - 9 months were really about the word or mouth credibility that came from partners and influencers that got us the biggest return.

[Intergen]

Totally agreed - we did go back and optimize once our website went live.

[Gyi]

The death of SEO has been greatly exaggerated at least as far back as 1997: https://plus.google.com/117235644077949816393/posts/ccq57PqfYXm

h/t: Wil Reynolds

I think EGOL's comment ends the debate.