Old SEO is Dead Modern SEO is More Important Than Ever!

Have you watched your SEO rankings drop lower and lower over the last year? There is a reason for this.

Over the last few years Google has been moving toward a Zero-Click philosophy. What is Zero-Click? Google describes it as giving users the information they need directly on the search results page. They do this by serving up additional information beyond the traditional organic search results.

Examples include:

• AI Overviews

• Paid Ads

• "People Also Search For" sections

• "People Also Ask" sections

• "Find Related Products & Services" sections

• Google Business Profile listings

• Featured Snippets

• Product Listings with photos

• Many other Google features

  
  

These additional features take up valuable space on the first page of Google. What's getting pushed down? Most of the time it's the organic listings. Years ago it was common to see nine or ten organic listings on the first page of Google. Today I've seen searches with as few as four.

In the past SEO stood on its own. If you did a good job optimizing your website, you usually ranked higher than your competitors. Today it's not that simple. The best way to think about SEO is as a point system.

Here are just a few of the optimization items that mattered in the past and still matter today:

• Is your site's load time acceptable?

• Is your content original and useful?

• Are you located in the market you're targeting?

• Is your page structure organized correctly?

• Do you have proper XML sitemaps?

• Are you linking to related content within your site?

• Are your images original?

  
  

Each of these items earns points. The more points your website earns, the stronger your opportunity to rank.

Modern SEO

SEO today is much more complex than it was in the past. It's no longer just about writing content and building pages. Your website has to provide value that Google believes deserves one of the limited organic positions on the first page. Google also looks at your site's authority when determining rankings (See our article on “Building Site Authority”.)

If you want your website to earn one of those valuable positions—or even be considered for AI-generated answers—you have to do much more than the standard SEO practices of the past. The old SEO fundamentals still matter. They always will. The difference is they are no longer enough by themselves.

Today Google looks at everything together:

• Organic search visibility

• Google Business Profile

• Product Listings

• Original images

• Original videos

• Maps visibility

• Whether your content can be used in AI-generated answers

• Featured Snippets

• Overall website authority

  
  

Again, this is only a small sample of the hundreds, if not thousands, of factors Google considers when ranking a website. The important thing is to develop a strategy and stick with it. Good rankings don't happen overnight. You have to prove over time that your website is a dependable source of information. You do that by consistently publishing useful, original content month after month.

If you hire an outside company to handle your SEO, ask them every month to show you exactly what they have done. If they tell you their SEO work isn't visible because "it's all in the backend," it may be time to start looking for another SEO company. For more on this subject, read my article SEO Red Flags. If you need help building a long-term plan, see my article SEO Strategy.

I have been in the SEO business for over 30 years. During that time I've only seen one other period where rankings changed as dramatically as they have over the last year. The last time was about twelve years ago when businesses realized how important content had become. Because writing quality content every month is difficult, people started using automated content-writing programs to mass produce articles. It didn't take Google long to recognize what was happening. They adjusted their algorithm to reward original, useful content and reduce the visibility of low-value, mass-produced pages.

I believe we're seeing something similar today with AI-generated content. There's nothing wrong with using AI to help proofread or improve your writing. But don't let AI do all the thinking for you. If your content isn't original or doesn't provide real value, it's going to struggle over time.

It's like the old saying, "You have to chop the wood to get the heat."

Do the work and you'll be rewarded. Take shortcuts and they may work for a while, but sooner or later Google catches up, and your rankings will usually reflect it.

I've read a lot of articles lately from people in the SEO industry saying Google has abandoned its old philosophy of "Do No Evil." I don't see it that way. The world is changing. Google has always tried to give users the best information possible. These new search features do provide people with more information without making them search as much. Yes, it makes life harder for people in the SEO business. But that's what separates the good SEO companies from the bad ones. The companies that continue to adapt will continue to succeed.