A Ten Year Perspective on SEO

I spoke recently to an ex-client who is poised to do some work with us again. They were one of our first clients when we started nearly 11 years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting in their office and explaining to them what SEO was and why it was so important for their business. It was a new concept to practically everyone in 1999.

What mattered most at that time was making sure that there was sufficient content on the page for the keywords that a company was targeting and removing impediments to effective site crawling by the search engines, like Frames.

It’s interesting to see just how much SEO requirements have evolved, while also noting the degree to which they have remained consistent. Content matters more than ever; not just on-page content, but blogs, video and other collateral are now part of the essential repertoire. If you don’t produce content that speaks to a particular keyword, the likelihood of appearing prominently for the keyword is very low.

There are still site architecture issues that can be problematic for the search engines, but persistent use of Frames has all but disappeared from the landscape. It’s important to keep current on what is essential for strong SEO results, but remember that content is still at the top of the list.