Does SEO Even Matter Anymore?

By on September 6, 2006 in Blog Coach, Blogging, Marketing with 3 Comments

I don’t know if SEO matters as much anymore – at least not like it did a few years ago. Here’s why I’m thinking this, and it’s almost accidental – almost.

A couple of months ago, I launched IowaBizEvents. Launched it quickly, cheaply and have made very little change to the out-of-box Typepad template. It’s not using Advanced Templates.

We haven’t put any keywords or descriptions in meta tags – yet. Haven’t submitted it to any blog directories (we did claim it on Technorati)

It’s a public service blog to provide dates, gatherings and profiles of speakers. And here’s where it gets interesting.

I recently did a profile on Todd McDonald (Todd supplied the bio), who is not only a top-notch professional speaker, but also an author and entrepreneur. Yet, if you Google Todd McDonald Iowa or Todd McDonald Speaker, what comes up first? I’m getting the IowaBizEvents post as the top result.

Same thing for professional speakers Kathy Peterson, Matt Booth and Jeff Bradford. Thankfully, I’ve published their contact info as well. Did a blog increase their findability?

All of this without any intentional SEO or Keyword strategies. We’re just trying to provide a one-stop-peek for Iowa Business Events (many have talked about it, few have implemented it).

So why aren’t each of these folks blogging? I guess that’s my fault. I should give them a call.

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  • Andy Priestley

    Hi Mike,
    Being found through the search engines is still of major importance to many businesses. You are proving that an active blog is a crucial piece to any search engine marketing strategy.
    Most search engines, including Google, list sites based on a number of key components. Some of those include:
    - Frequent Site Updates
    - Search Engine Friendly Text
    - Link Building
    Your blog (and most quality blogs) include these characteristics. Naturally, a blog changes frequently, contains large amounts of relevant text & builds far-reaching links through a network of posts.
    It is the goal of each search engine to provide a listing of the most important, most relevant, sites for any given search. Blogs provide time applicable, text intensive pages that share knowledge through a network of links. It only makes sense that the search engines would find these characteristics to be worthy of a high listing & desired by their consumers (the person performing the search).

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Great comment, Andy. And you’re right on target. Search sites have content (king) which serves the kingdom (the user). Their content is relevant search results, yes?
    Makes sense that a site with page depth, fresh content, and isn’t a dead-end for information would be listed higher when compared with its opposite.

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Good points Mike.
    Ironically enough, I tried your search on Yahoo! and got this exact post as the second highest ranking. :)
    Anyway, I think you may also be noticing some recent changes Google made in how they rank websites. Google is always messing with things to get the best search results possible. I would guess part of this is an attempt to keep SEO specialists on their toes.
    Great conversation!

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