Is SEO Dead?

I want to talk about a favorite topic that, to my continued surprise, seems to be controversial. And the topic is set around the question of, “Is SEO dead?”

Previously, when conveying my thoughts on this topic, I would just come out and say SEO is dead. In fact, at my talks over the past few years, I had a slide dedicated to it, with the phrase in 100pt type. It all seemed pretty clear to me, but I’ve since been told that there are parts of that message that weren’t fully understood. So let’s take a more nuanced approach.

Newfangled’s Experience During the SEO Golden Age

First of all, some brief context: Newfangled has been involved in marketing since 1995 — 29 years — so we precede Google, and we’ve been deeply involved in content marketing for the entirety of Google’s existence. While we’ve never had an “in” with Google, we have been carefully playing by their rules for the past 25 years. And SEO, for the majority of our existence, has been the cornerstone of our lead development and our client’s lead development. SEO is something we’ve taken very seriously, and still do.

It used to be that you could publish an article and the next day, if it was a good article that was framed properly, it’d show up on page one on Google. Sometimes at the top of page one. Just to prove this to a client in 2004, I wrote a quick, thousand-word article about what they do, framed it properly, and posted it on our site. The next day we were ranked number one for the target phrase. Even though the topic had nothing to do with what Newfangled was doing. We took it down right away, but I just wanted to show them it worked. It worked very well, and very quickly, for a long time.

The Changing Landscape of SEO

All the updates Google put out over the years that turned the whole SEO world upside down were almost always to thwart spammers. If you published great, unique, specific content, you were typically rewarded, and continually rewarded through all of their many updates. We started our newsletter in 2000 and it was an objective, educational, empathetic, content-rich newsletter. We published it every single month, no matter what. I have vivid memories of Eric Holter, and then Chris Butler, grueling over their monthly masterpieces (which they truly were). The content was always deeply insightful, squarely focused on our target audience (agencies), and exceedingly generous–we gave our best, most current expertise away, for free. And Google loved that stuff. So we got in right at the ground floor and we were handsomely rewarded for that. It was amazing.

Then, we taught our clients how to do that and it was a whole lot of fun and it worked really well. And for all the businesses out there who got into the SEO game some time ago (at least three to five years ago) then everything’s still fine. You’re probably still doing great. Your traffic’s gone down some (for reasons we’ll talk about in a minute) but you could still post content and have it ranked. If you’re new to the game, well, there’s no nuance or subtlety to be had. SEO is Dead.

Why SEO is “Dead” for Content Marketing Newcomers

Now, again, when I say SEO is dead, I’m speaking to firms out there who are just getting into it now. Firms who never really had a content strategy, or if they did, it was weak and inconsistent. Or firms who never really played the game, but are ready now. They say, we’ve chosen this area of expertise, we really know it well, and we’re going to start publishing content. We’re really going to go for it, and be consistent this time.

But even if you are an exemplary student, play exactly by the rules and do every single thing right and start publishing this week, it’ll take you at least 18 months (probably a lot longer, like double that) before you could have any hope of showing up on page one. Now, if you go hire an SEO firm, pay them tens of thousands of dollars a month, they could probably figure out a way to make that go faster. But I’ve been working with you and your peers for decades, and I know you’re not going to do that because I know what you spend on marketing.

For the small agencies (creative and digital) under 250 people or so, you’re not going to choose to spend enough money to get the return from SEO that you would expect. And that’s one of the reasons why I say SEO is dead. It just takes so long. When you decide to finally and truly invest what’s necessary to make marketing work for you, you’re going to need to see results in a certain amount of time.

The Content Explosion and AI, and What Google Wants

One of the big reasons SEO isn’t as powerful now as it used to be for marketing — I’m talking about the period from 2000 through 2022 — is just the sheer explosion of content out there. Back in the day, you could put up a decent page and boom, you’re ranking. But as time went on, it started taking longer and longer to get any traction — because you had to fight through more and more mud to get there.

The beginning of last year, 2023, Google announced it was going to start indexing AI content. They decided that they didn’t care about how the content was created and were going to rank whatever they deem to be the best content. This is really in keeping with how Google has always thought about content. The original mission statement on their about page was “to make the world’s information accessible.” They started indexing AI content, and of course the result is now there’s so much more content that they’re indexing. And the bigger that mountain of content, the higher of a climb you have if you want to actually get to results.

More Diminishing Returns of SEO

Now, the other reason why SEO isn’t really a practical lead development route for people just getting into it is Google is listing these Perplexity-style results right at the top of the page. I’ve found that, in most cases, it gives me what I’m looking for. And I’ve also found that if it doesn’t, I’m more likely to change my query than I am to scroll. My scrolling on Google has plummeted. And I bet that’s true for you, too.

So even if you were ranked on page one, the chances of somebody seeing it are significantly lower because fewer and fewer people are scrolling, and I don’t think that trend’s going to change. I think it’s only going one direction, which is why SEO is not something that you should expect to get results from in the near term.

The Continued Importance of Quality Content

You still have to write the content though So you post the content on your site, follow the rules, frame it properly for search engines, link it and backlink it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the agencies we work with are eager to see results from their marketing, and they’re not going to wait years to see it. So if you want the fastest results possible, it’s still all about the content.

The rules of great content have not really changed at all in the past 20 years — great content engages people, builds trust and credibility, and educates the specific masses. Those are the rules and what you should do to achieve your goal of lead generation. That’s what’s changed a lot over the years.

Coming Up: Email, LinkedIn, and Attracting MQLs

Next up we’ll be talking about email tactics and lead generation on LinkedIn. In the meantime, I very much welcome any insight, any counter perspectives, anything I’ve gotten wrong, any further questions… bring it on. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter. This is how we all learn!