SEO – Is It The Forefront of Marketing?

Marketing is an industry encompassing, well, frankly, quite a lot. There’s the high-level strategy and all the many varying marketing tactics falling into categories such as sales, advertising, and the vast world of its own that is digital. 

The world has gradually been moving online for years upon years. Now, you can hardly find one person without a smartphone with some sort of internet access. If any brand hasn’t already moved into internet marketing at this point, they have fallen severely behind. 

For the modern marketing era, internet marketing is simply a must. And one of the best forms of marketing on the internet is search engine optimization. 

Our question today is whether SEO might be the tactic that drives the future of marketing. What does SEO mean to the modern marketer?

What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is much more than just pressing a single, simple button and then declaring that your website is optimized. There are actually a wide range of different tasks, from the technical aspects of a website to the creation of quality content, that contribute to the optimization of a website. 

It requires a lot of work on various aspects in order to get on the right side of search engine algorithms. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s what’s necessary to compete in the current marketing landscape. 

Just the right SEO strategy is needed for a brand to get found by any customers that are online. Since almost every single customer is now online, SEO’s importance simply cannot be denied. 

SEO’s Journey to Being One of the Top Marketing Practices

Now, obviously, it has not always been this way. Considering the internet’s own youth, it must be understood that SEO is still a fairly new strategy. 

Yet, SEO has quickly emerged as one of the best options for those pursuing a better marketing strategy in our world of always-growing competition. As soon as the internet captured attentions, SEO took no time at all making itself known as well. 

The Emergence of SEO Strategy

The internet, at the first moments of its invention, did not come with search engines. The first methods of navigating this new world were nothing like we would recognize as the search engines of today. 

It began, in a way, with directories. Think in the vein of the Yellow Pages, that ancient thing we knew as a phone book, not anything like the internet directories we are familiar with today. Breaking into these was also a very different game than today’s process of SEO, and it was just about impossible for small businesses

When the very first search engines appeared, it was definitely a game-changer. Yet these were nowhere near as sophisticated as what today’s continuously-evolving algorithms offer us. With some very simple actions, the first efforts in the name of SEO, the early engines were quickly manipulated. 

The problem was that the ranking was almost purely based on keywords on a page, with no safeguards in place to fight against those just looking to hack the system. Nothing stood in the way of keyword-stuffers winning the top spots on the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

At that time, a successful SEO strategy didn’t require real skill to craft a quality website. And even as search engines got updates, growing better at separating the high-quality sites from the spam, SEO tricks were adapted. 

Yet Google and the other big players eventually got wind of this black hat SEO as well. With more and more endeavors on the part of the search engines to stamp it out, SEO has had to truly evolve. 

It is not what it used to be. It is not an easy strategy that you can succeed at with tricks or hacks, but it’s really something better now. 

As the sphere of SEO has grown and matured, its place in the marketing world has only further become cemented. Moving forward, it is certain that we will see SEO move into the forefront of the entire marketing industry. 

Seeing the Evolving Benefits of Doing SEO

SEO requires a lot of effort to really get it right, but it is absolutely worth it. The benefits that embarking on an SEO strategy can bring are numerous. 

Without requiring a huge investment, an SEO process can get your website seen by increasing its visibility on search engines. And each new visitor to your brand’s website is another potential customer that you can profit from. Considering how many people now discover brands in this way, through the internet, this seems like too big of an opportunity for anyone to miss out on. 

We’ve gotten to the point where businesses need SEO. It has left being an option behind to become vital. And that is why SEO is the forefront of marketing. 

Search Engine Optimization as The Forefront of Marketing

It is really time now that the marketing world makes way for its latest champion: SEO. Its dominance can no longer be doubted. 

For all that the process of SEO offers businesses and beyond, it can be declared to be the forefront of marketing. 

The Best Way to Get Found Online

Organic search engine traffic is the number one way brands get discovered online. Search engine optimization tasks make that happen more consistently for the brands implementing them. 

Here’s how it works. 

SEO experts work on the website, optimizing content to better match the keywords that are being typed into search engines, improving the overall website itself to make it appealing to those that do arrive, and performing a variety of other tasks like link-building and meta optimization to rank higher and pull in more ideal potential customers. All these items, the small and the big, add up to a brand’s website showing up more and more often to the internet users that are most likely to be interested in the business. 

Take Wag! For a good example of this successful SEO plan in action. A dog owner who has any question about their dog, whether it’s on their behavior, health, or another advice topic, can find the answer on Wag!’s comprehensive blog. Yet, straight to this blog is not where most people would turn. Wag!’s blog is filled with posts on a variety of topics because when that dog owner turns with their question to every internet user’s most trusted friend, Google, a link to Wag!’s website (specifically those blog posts) will show up as one of the top results. And, of course, if you are asking about these dog topics, it can be assumed that you are a dog owner who might be interested in one of this company’s many services. 

What this example showcases is that SEO works. It gets brands found online, through those most-loved tools, the search engines. 

As getting found is that very first critical step, this power of SEO alone shouldn’t be taken for granted. Neither should SEO itself be

One of the Most Important Marketing Techniques Right Now

There are other marketing endeavors that you can use, that you should use, if you really want to get your brand out there and in front of customers. But the valuable strategy of SEO supplements all these other methods. 

All other advertising mediums intersect with and feed into good SEO. When prospects see and engage with any type of traditional advertising that you put out, SEO is often the next tactic to lure them. Consider it: Is the next step after viewing a billboard or television commercial not to then visit that business’s website?

Having potential customers on the website can also then allow you to lead them into other marketing methods. By getting them to submit their contact information to join the mailing list or encouraging them to follow your social media accounts, you can lengthen their consumer journey. In this way, it won’t end at its search engine beginnings, though it does all come back to SEO. 

With the whole world online, a business’s website couldn’t be a more important asset. Websites enable customers to get to know a brand, to stay in contact, and to make the purchase. SEO is what powers these websites. 

SEO is one of the most important marketing techniques there is right now.  

A Smart Strategy Moving Into the Future

SEO is not going anywhere any time soon. It will continue evolving, sure. Just as the SEO of the past is not now the SEO that we know today, the SEO of tomorrow will also be something completely different. Still, it will be there. 

In fact, SEO’s changes moving forward may only provide us more opportunities. We can already see the direction that’s being moved in, with AI, mobile, and voice search shining bright as the modern technologies of our future. These are what SEO experts will have to adapt to as the industry grows. Yet with more ways for customers to find their new favorite brands online, the more opportunities there are for SEO to give your brand the best fighting chance. 

Never Stop Investing in SEO

SEO is not a marketing method you will want to neglect at any point, now or in the future. It is the forefront of marketing. Only with SEO can every brand find its success. 

Author Bio: Dmitrii Kustov is founder of Regex SEO. Currently, as Internet Marketing Director for Regex SEO, he is helping businesses and entrepreneurs grow their presence online. Due to his experience and background, he has been able to share hands-on knowledge about the following topics: Internet marketing (SEO, paid advertising, social media, content marketing, etc), statistical analytics, web development, and entrepreneurship.

Rylie Holt