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by sharkweek 4152 days ago
No, good SEO is designing a page that is perfectly crawlable by bots (this is still difficult for most people, especially for larger websites and people who aren't familiar with webmaster best practices), and researching/creating/promoting relevant content to attract links.

There are of course shady people in the SEO world, but most of the "one cool trick to help you rank better" tactics are long gone as Google has done a pretty good job squashing those through algo updates.

Saying "SEO is still a service to break search engines" is incredibly misguided - Organic search is a ridiculously powerful growth opportunity for brands as ranking #1 for proper keywords can be a multimillion dollar marketing value add. To sell that short is incredibly foolish, and every brand worth their weight should truly believe they deserve to rank #1 for relevant terms, why not work to achieve this?
1 comments
toolz 4152 days ago
research/creating/promoting don't really fall under an SEO title. If search engine optimization is broadly defined enough to where content creation is considered SEO, then basically everyone with a website is an SEOer.
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sharkweek 4152 days ago
Content marketing is certainly rooted in SEO though, with the often-existing explicit intention of having a relevant piece of content rank well for informational queries. Or at least having this content designed to attract links, which are still a major part of the ranking equation.

The lines are definitely blurring, so the main thing I'm arguing is that SEO should be in every marketer's tool belt, it's not some black hat wizardry anymore.

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toolz 4152 days ago
Everything on the internet is rooted in SEO, by design. Google has the intent that truly fascinating things be given the most visibility on the internet, that has nothing to do with studying up how to appear at the top of google's list and everything to do with studying how to be fascinating to people on the internet.
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ssharp 4152 days ago
SEO is constantly evolving. Table stakes is a website that is easily indexed. SEO strategy is currently focused largely on creating and promoting content.
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