Is SEO still a thing?

Benni0315 · May 9, 2021

It seems to me like SEO now days is just having quality content with maybe a silo structure or something.

Back in the day SEO was all about backlinks, keyword density... but I feel like Google has eliminated 90% of these things and you are only able to influence the 10%

Do I miss something here?

MutantAlex · May 9, 2021

For me 40/100 niche research + backlinks 20//100 backlinks + 20/100 content + 20/100 on page seo = 100/100 if you also add social signal + organic traffic clicks its extra ..

I think this is depend on the niche work on. I work on a niche where i don't need a single backlink and other few niches which work great just with 301s redirectors

davids355 · May 9, 2021

It's still very much alive but it is a lot harder and you need to be working on the bigger picture - as @MutantAlex mentioned, you can't just focus on keyword stuffing or tonnes of backlinks, you need to be working on your on-page SEO, internal linking, page speed, content, keyword research and then add your backlinks into the mix.

Also, keyword density is still a thing, but now instead of focusing on a single keyword, you need to look at a cluster of keywords and then apply a modified version of the old techniques.

Lastly, think higher quality with everything, especially your backlinks.

Purush · May 9, 2021

Seo constanly changing but content with good links works all the time mate

ramuite · May 9, 2021

SEO is dead.

bartosimpsonio · May 9, 2021

Benni0315 said:
Do I miss something here?

What didn't you miss?

Benni0315 · May 9, 2021

MutantAlex said:
For me 40/100 niche research + backlinks 20//100 backlinks + 20/100 content + 20/100 on page seo = 100/100 if you also add social signal + organic traffic clicks its extra ..

I think this is depend on the niche work on. I work on a niche where i don't need a single backlink and other few niches which work great just with 301s redirectors

davids355 said:
It's still very much alive but it is a lot harder and you need to be working on the bigger picture - as @MutantAlex mentioned, you can't just focus on keyword stuffing or tonnes of backlinks, you need to be working on your on-page SEO, internal linking, page speed, content, keyword research and then add your backlinks into the mix.

Also, keyword density is still a thing, but now instead of focusing on a single keyword, you need to look at a cluster of keywords and then apply a modified version of the old techniques.

Lastly, think higher quality with everything, especially your backlinks.

Thank you guys for the detailed answer. I agree that it also really depends on the niche.

bartosimpsonio said:
What didn't you miss?

Im reading the occasional „SEO is dead“ Post here every week or so and really thought about it today. I’m kind of managing the whole E-commerce of a local Shop here and they are very new to the whole E-commerce stuff and don’t know much about Even tho they are doing it for a few years now.

We boosted our sales on Amazon up to 200 on some days but the Onlineshop is still shit and we made like 2 sales in a month with about 2000 (!) products Online.

Im currently working on SEA with google shopping and it is working really well but Organically we only rank on local keywords (as we sell offline, besides covid) and some rare products. I don’t know how I should tackle the whole SEO thing, should I hire an agency, knowing of the possibility that they are some amateurs starting their agency (which I see very often lately) or what should I do. We are going to switch on Shopify which may help with managing the whole seo

TLDR: I don’t know how I should tackle the whole SEO thing with a shop that soon has about 5000 products online and doesent rank that well (we are competing with big shops with big budgets). Pictures + descriptions are from our manufacturer

bartosimpsonio · May 9, 2021

Benni0315 said:
TLDR: I don’t know how I should tackle the whole SEO thing with a shop that soon has about 5000 products online and doesent rank that well (we are competing with big shops with big budgets). Pictures + descriptions are from our manufacturer

What are the competing shops doing for SEO?

IamKing · May 9, 2021

Benni0315 said:
TLDR: I don’t know how I should tackle the whole SEO thing with a shop that soon has about 5000 products online and doesent rank that well (we are competing with big shops with big budgets). Pictures + descriptions are from our manufacturer

Increase your overall site authority by getting HQ links. Also market your website through different channels to get direct traffic.

BrandingCat · May 9, 2021

Age becomes a very important factor lately because you can not manipulate the snapshots. Otherwise, SEO remains the same. We all must be aware if Google wants to shuffle rankings, he will.

Benni0315 · May 9, 2021

bartosimpsonio said:
What are the competing shops doing for SEO?

https://www.semrush.com/analytics/overview/?q=Bergfreunde.de&searchType=domain
This is one of the big players we are competing with. There aren’t many small shops we are competing with. We are sitting at about 1200 organic traffic/month but most of the traffic is actually searching our shop name, as they know us locally and want so buy something, most of the time, offline.

They have 4M Backlinks and a very big budget. They even advertise for keywords where they are already on position 1...

Our drop out rate is sometimes really good with organic traffic (30%)

tazarbm · May 9, 2021

IamKing said:
Increase your overall site authority by getting HQ links. Also market your website through different channels to get direct traffic.

THIS! I know that it sounds like a boring cliche but it still holds true today. I often take a look at various keywords in various niches and - even though I am a passionate hater of 3rd party metrics (like those offered by ahrefs, moz, etc) it amazes me the pattern that all websites ranking on 1st page of google for ALL keywords that I randomly analyze have all high DA metrics. The PA differs occasionally, but the DA is high across all websites (like 99,99% of the websites ranking on google's 1st page have high DA score, over 40 most of the time).

And the DA metric can be manipulated by acquiring backlinks from other websites with high DA (preferably high PA) score themselves. If you can raise the DA of your domain to at least 60 I dare predict that you'll have an easier time ranking, and outranking your competition just by making your user experience slightly better than your competitors'

Panther28 · May 9, 2021

You have to build sites for life now, unless you really got some secret shit that you best plan on keeping to yourself

Unless of course they get deindexed, but its obviously not what you plan for the lifetime of the site if possible.

I have a research spreadsheet that I update with searches in 100+ niches, and I'm still amazed at how bad people build their site, especially for amazon affiliates.

Its worth spending time researching what other people are doing, not necessarily just at the top, but also in the middle, as that's your minimum.

GeeLark AI · May 9, 2021

still doing both, and nothing seems to have changed around the niches I'm targeting.

joepapp · May 9, 2021

SEO is still important, you can get to the next level with link building. However, there are new techniques to be considered. Nowadays the best working combo for me is blog post (longish texts) boosted with organic traffic (Magicserp is fine) and supported with some links.

HustleTong · May 9, 2021

Topical relevancy is dominating the SERP (For most informational search queries)
It differs a bit for buyer intent searches.

HenryObi · May 9, 2021

Benni0315 said:
It seems to me like SEO now days is just having quality content with maybe a silo structure or something.

Back in the day SEO was all about backlinks, keyword density... but I feel like Google has eliminated 90% of these things and you are only able to influence the 10%

Do I miss something here?

Google algo has gotten smarter since it now understands search intent to an extent. This is why when you search for a keyword, most results are related in kind of site or talking about the same topic and not just all about the keywords. For example, searching for a product woulf most likely provide you e-commerce platforms than blog pages.

Crewchief007 · May 9, 2021

Hmmmmmm...

Benni0315 said:
Im currently working on SEA with google shopping and it is working really well but Organically we only rank on local keywords (as we sell offline, besides covid) and some rare products. I don’t know how I should tackle the whole SEO thing,

You start by learning how to optimize product pages! It the same as on-page SEO, only it's specifically for products.

Code:

https://shanebarker.com/blog/optimize-ecommerce-product-page/

Use Shane's info as a launching pad; do your homework and MASTER the art of Product/eCommerce SEO!

Another ingredient that's part of the eCommerce secret sauce is mastering Rich Snippets!

Benni0315 said:
Ishould I hire an agency, knowing of the possibility that they are some amateurs starting their agency (which I see very often lately) or what should I do.

The decision to hire or not hire an agency is a serious one, they MUST prove to you that they KNOW SEO with proven results. If they are for real, they will show you PROOF of their succes. Not hype; not sales pitches; REAL CLIENTS < PROOF!

That stated, I would not hire ANY agency until you clearly understand what SEO is for eCommerce, and can undertand and talk intelligently about the subject matter. Until then, DIY!

Benni0315 said:
We are going to switch on Shopify which may help with managing the whole seo.

Actually, Shopify will help you manage your products; you will still be required to engage in and execute SEO.

As a matter of fact, Shopify actually presents you with a NEW set of issues such as:

(a). You cannot control robots.txt file
(b). You have to delete a page before you can Redirect it
(c). You lose granular SEO control
(d). Shopify is known to create duplicate product pages, (research this issue and how to address it!)

Overall, Shopify is a great platform that works well for the eCOmmerce owners who want an easy to manage product system.

tiiberius · May 9, 2021

It is certainly more complex but definitely not gone

Things keep piling up. No thing is replacing the other really. Just keeps adding up.

It used to be on-page + techncal (so I heard

). Then came backlinks. Social signals. Traffic metrics (bounce rate etc). Schema. Now web vitals.

bartosimpsonio · May 9, 2021

Benni0315 said:
https://www.semrush.com/analytics/overview/?q=Bergfreunde.de&searchType=domain
This is one of the big players we are competing with. There aren’t many small shops we are competing with. We are sitting at about 1200 organic traffic/month but most of the traffic is actually searching our shop name, as they know us locally and want so buy something, most of the time, offline.

They have 4M Backlinks and a very big budget. They even advertise for keywords where they are already on position 1...

Our drop out rate is sometimes really good with organic traffic (30%)

Do they rank? What's their SEO strategy? Do the same.

Is SEO still a thing?

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