To be totally honest, breaking the SEO mindset is one of the toughest things I have ever had to force myself to do.
In the past, I focused on using SEO to rank for keywords and I was successful at it. Old habits, it seems, are hard to break.
Honestly though, it is a bit of a relief because during the days of “SEO is King” it never failed that the top position would always go the the “outfit” with the most resources…you know…kind of like in politics.
Regardless, the days of SEO were numbered from their start. I mean, honestly, who in the world ever thought that index results would be so easily manipulated for as long as they have.
Should You Break The SEO Mindset?
Yes. Break it and break it NOW!
The SEO mindset is dangerous…dangerous to you and your website.
I am not saying that as soon as you buy a few links that you are going to get nailed and penalized. Odds are…you won’t…odds are…Google will never find out…odds are…business will proceed as usual…most likely, indefinitely.
However, SEO brings (as it always has) with it some rather nasty baggage that damages your mindset in the long run and that mindset is this:
“It is OK to cater to search engines above all…”
Wrong! Way wrong! Search engines suck eggs and they always have. When is the last time Google bot has purchased ANYTHING from you?
Never! Google bot has never purchased anything from you and it never will…because it doesn’t need anything.
Social Media Is Actually The Future
Search engine algorithms will make no more than 50% of the overall equation moving forward.
I have no facts…no figures to support this. This is just something that my sixth sense is telling me.
SEO has taught me to write articles, build links, get web pages indexed, and a whole host of other things that will ultimately be wiped out…at least partially.
That being said, I have taken a renewed interest in social media and I have dusted off my Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus accounts.
Additionally, I will be generating YouTube videos for my YouTube channel in the near future.
Why? Increase diversification. Diversification is a buffer against disaster when it comes to internet based business..just like in the real world.
Special Focus On Google Plus
Why? Simple. Google is interested in keep “the bots” our and for good reason. As soon as bots can easily and effectively post in Google +, its all over…it becomes a users nightmare just like Twitter did.
Sure, you can spend a full hour a day managing your account, but who wants to do that?!?
I like where Google is taking Google +. With respect to Facebook…I can’t stand it…its annoying and whoever is coding it on the back-end needs a lesson in usability. I have to read a tutorial on everything I do there…nothing is intuitive.
With respect to Twitter…I still think its a fad that will soon pass. I can’t stand it. I have never…not once…ever derived anything useful from it. Personally, I consider the whole site a waste of internet bandwidth…as I do most micro-blogging sites…they’re all glorified link directories…Facebook included.
But, social media is a necessary “evil” still.
Moving Forward
Moving forward, this is my plan:
- Write Awesome Content Daily or Weekly and Post it to Your Site
- Submit Old Articles for Syndication to Brand Yourself
- Buy Links from Trusted Websites or Create Websites for Real Business and Use Them to Link To Yourself
- Contribute to Social Media Sites and Try to Act Like I’m Actually Interested
- Continuously Perform the Three Aforementioned Steps and Act Like Google Doesn’t Exist
- Work for and Advertise to Real People…Not Search Engines…You Will be Amazed at the Results
And that’s basically it. That’s what we do here. Honestly, I hardly ever think about SEO and SEM anymore. I like to focus on building quality sites with high levels of interactivity. Its more fun anyway.
Bonus
If you’re interested in the idea of offering websites for local businesses in your general area, I have something for you. Here is a link to a do-it-yourself guide to building your own websites:
Give it away…sell it and keep the profits…use it to build websites for clients for the sake of link building purposes.
Trust me, it works.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.
Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.