For nearly 20 years SEO has been the bedrock of online marketing. I’ve always believed in content marketing or,in other words, writing things that my readers find valuable.  However, recently I’ve paid more attention to traditional SEO.  I find it ironic that SEO is considered to be dead or dying right about the time that I started paying attention to it.  Perhaps it’s more correct to say that SEO has evolved to a place where content is all that matters.

This excellent article by @eriksherman makes some great points.  Google’s recent lockdown of keywords has many marketers pounding and kicking the floor in disbelief.  While I’m  not one to pound and  kick the floor, I have to admit that the change  bothered me.  Erik’s article brought me back to my roots.  It’s not about SEO.  Marketing is about solving problems, building relationships, and building trust so that your customers want to purchase your products.  There are really only three steps to helping yourself get found:

1. Write good content (i.e. blogs, articles, videos etc.), the stuff that your customers want to know.  Answer their questions, give tips and shortcuts or just share articles that will shorten the learning curve.
2. Share those articles on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook or Linked In.  Ask questions, encourage that your audience asks questions and join the conversation.
3. Be consistent.  For me, this is the hardest part, but I promise you, consistency pays.

It really is that simple.   Check out Erik’s article and tell me what you think.  Do you agree or disagree?

http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/seo-is-dead-audience-optimization.html