SEO…are you still breathing?

It is 11.30am at noon, you are at your desk finishing up whatever you need to do before lunch time and your colleague walk up towards you and ask, “Hey, so what are we having for lunch? I am thinking about anything Japanese.” What is your next action? I bet you will whip out your phone and go to Google and search “Japanese restaurant nearby”. And BAM! All the Japanese restaurants near you appear. But do you know, the sequence of the restaurants appearing in the results has a big marketing gimmick behind it? That gimmick I called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how is it done?

Search Engine Optimization is increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your websites through search engine results. There are many ways to optimize your websites with the help of many programs.

One of the biggest search engine, Google, has variety tools that could help you, as a marketer, to optimize your sites such as;

• Google AdWord – Bid for keywords to have your site to be at the top rank of the search research with the keywords are searched
• Google My Business – Allows Google to acknowledge your business in a geographical location, hence when the nature of your business and the geography of your business is searched, it will be at a higher rank in the search result
• Google’s Page Speed Insight tool – Google to check the loading speed of your site

You can find more information here for more details on how to optimize your site on Google Search Engine.

Why Do I Need to Use SEO in My Marketing Strategy?

SEO tackles the part of your marketing strategy that pulls consumers to you, which is the pulling strategy. Pull strategy is where you draw the consumers to you, and SEO allows you to do that. For example, you are marketing for a nail salon located in the east of Singapore. When consumers are browsing for options for nail salon, they search on Google; “nail salon in the east”, your site will appear on the higher rank of the search result if you had successfully executed SEO for your site. In short, SEO allows your brand to appear at the top of the consumers’ search engine when they are exploring for potential choices in the nature of the industry of your business, giving you additional exposure to an untapped potential pool of consumers.

Ok Ok. SO IS SEO STILL BREATHING?

Ok now we know what SEO is, let’s address the elephant in the room. IS SEO STILL BREATHING?

Well, yes it is! But to get to the bottom of this, we need to understand something. Why do people say that it is dead? Well, just like anything in this modern world, things are evolving and becoming better, and so does SEO. Rumours of its death started way back in the early 2010s, and headlines of its death didn’t stop even till now. Debates also started to flourish at this time, where both parties argue back and forth about the necessity of SEO in the current age where social media dominates the digital marketing industry.

The real deal is, SEO did not die. It didn’t even for a minute. Instead, IT EVOLVED and it is still evolving. It needs to evolve because there are new ways discovered now and then with regards to how we carried out our searches and what we are searching for. One example of a rising trend of search method is voice search, which has a great impact on how SEO works. Voice search has provided great convenience to users by allowing them to multi-task and get answers faster. With such a huge trend going on, it changes the game for SEO dramatically. Because the main component of SEO, which is the action of the users asking a question, is changing because the words that are typed into a search engine is different from the words used to ask a question. For example, if a user is using a search engine for a nail salon in the east, they will type in “nail salon in the east”. If it is a search through voice search, it will be “Please recommend a nail salon in the east.” The main difference between both derives from one being a keyword search, and the other is a question search.

One great example would be Amazon Alexa, a voice recognition virtual assistant that allows users to say out their search request, and from there, Alexa will present her findings verbally or act as the users’ desire.

Another trend that SEO will be needed to adapt to would be image searching, where users use an image as the search itself to find similar results, which totally eliminates words in the process of searching. All the users have to do, is to have a photo of what they want, drop it in the search engine, and the search engine will utilize the image SEO to identify similar or identical images as per the users’ input.

The list goes on and on and it will never have an end because technology is making every process, including the process of searching easier for the users, but more complicated for the marketers. Hence, such drastic changes had made SEO evolves over the years.

So, Should I Still Use SEO?

Yes! You should still consider including SEO in your marketing strategy, but provided that it is necessary and feasible. SEO is a tool that helps you gain exposure to potential consumers that are browsing for options. They are perhaps a pool of potential consumers that you did not manage to attract via your other channels of marketing, hence search engine is a great way to approach them since they have the demand for a service that you are offering. And because it is ever-evolving, it is able to adapt to the new methods of searching, that can bring your business closer to appear on the search results of the consumers, matching what you offer, to what they want or need.

A Pixel of Your Thought…

For this week’s pixel of your thought, in the comments section below, tell me if Search Engine Optimization will be your choice of marketing strategy, why and why not?

Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, there is only just personal opinions. 🙂

Thank you for reading!