Why Google’s Recent Changes Mean Good News for the SEO Industry
Guest Author, Bharati Ahuja
Recently we have been observing many changes affecting the SEO industry. These changes are all initiated by Google and have a direct impact on SEO campaigns in some way or another. The SEO industry has been exploding the web with blog posts, comments and opinions about these updations, most of which are like an accusation that Google is out to get at organic search with a vengeance and give preference, priority and partial treatment to paid search.
The major Google developments affecting the search scene have been:
- Obviously, the Panda update
- The integration of Webmaster Tools with Google Analytics, reflecting SEO data (queries, landing pages, geographical data)
- Google Analytics social data (engagement, action and pages )
- Google Analytics real-time data (Beta Version – this data shows you what is happening on your website as it happens, but only some accounts have access to these reports)
- Google’s “Encrypted Search”
Of course there are many more, but these updates and developments have a direct impact on SEO campaigns. I believe that whatever the prime objective of Google may be currently –whether it is to promote paid search or to improve the quality of organic search results in general — in the long run, these changes will surely improve the quality standards of the SEO industry and improve the overall quality of the web. Why?
- The Panda update focused on quality content and an eradication of content spam.
- The reflection of the social data proves that the integration of social and search results is something that Google is working on and taking seriously.
- The other developments related with Google Analytics and encrypted search shows that Google wants the website owners to get genuine and accurate data for their SEO campaigns .
The prime objective of an SEO campaign is to earn the clicks due to the quality aspects of the website as per the search engine standards and not account for every click as in the case of PPC, where every click has a cost implication.
Moreover, if the site is optimized correctly the search presence of the website continues to improve and become richer with time, thereby ensuring an increasing trend for targeted traffic, whereas in the case of a paid search campaign the period for which the website is having the search presence is limited to the period for which you are paying for the campaign.
I think all these changes are drawing a clear, distinct line between organic search campaigns and paid campaigns. The choice is to be made by the website owner, whether he wants to build a search presence step by step via a SEO campaign or go for a Paid search presence campaign via paid search, or would like to have a combination of both , depending on the approach, need and requirement for a search engine presence.
All of these developments will make SEOs and website owners think beyond rankings and keywords, because the true meaning of SEO is to ensure quality search engine presence on maximum search options by focusing on overall quality web presence — enhancing the quality aspects of the website and reaching out to netizens via various modes of social media.
About the Author:
Bharati Ahuja is founder of WebPro Technologies, SEO Trainer and Speaker, Web Entrepreneur, Blog Writer, and Internet Marketing Consultant.
I’m not sure what to think about the difference in organic search/paid searches just yet, but it’s no secret that articles have to be written for the audience and not for the search engines. Don’t get me wrong, search engines are often the ticket to your site. It’s real people that bring conversion and retention.
Thanks for a great article..!
Best
Peter Westlund (@bastlund)
I must be one of the few SEO’s to be overjoyed by Google’s Panda.
My on-page SEO efforts have always focused on grammatically correct, compelling content as the foundation for building long term SEO results.
There are only two things that actually matter when creating great written content – good keyword research and great writing. If your work contains both of these elements, you will get results, regardless of how Google tinkers with analytics.
Panda has made me a happy panda! :-D
First off, nice post Bharati!
One of the thing I want to say hear is, most of the website owner still thinks PPC works great for them as PPC gives top 3 positions very quickly and they never think to invest on SEO. Also, Google Panda worked great for PPC. Site owners who were only dependent on PPC were very happy to see their competitor’s down and only depending on SEO shifts to PPC who got victim of it.
We never know what’s the Plan of Google!
Bit Confused and may be i am talking a bit rubbish here but i didn’t get hoe exactly Encrypted Search is a good news for SEO?
Yes Moosa it is quite logical to be confused regarding this especially when the majority of the industry is opposing it.
But surely I think there is a certain positive aspect to it also for the SEO industry . Maybe my thoughts on expressed on the following link throw some light on it.
http://blog.webpro.in/2011/10/is-googles-encrypted-search-bane-or.html
and on
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-hides-search-referral-data-with-new-ssl-implementation-emergency-whiteboard-friday#jtc157373
Most of what I read in the SEO blogosphere is obvious stuff but if you look beyond what is obvious… you’ll see social plays a very small role…we know this now by the reports of very low counts found by the encrypted SERPs. See… Google giveth when it takes away. I have been pondering what the “real value” of optimizing for personal and Social searches is and the encrypted data is going to show me. Real SEO’s can track this new footprint. Google has now told us that worrying about how Social and Personalized search affects rankings was a waste of energy for many sites.