Search engine dramas have left us with lots of “Ifs and Buts”. Caffeine update followed by algorithm change is only to start with. A lot more is still waiting for webmasters and eventually the website owners to discover.
It is time to think ahead of time. What is there in store for this SEO as a blooming service industry?
Quick questions that came to my mind:
I was just wondering whether SEO industry would retain its position and importance in coming days, or will people take it for granted? With “N” number of SEO professionals (majority from Asian countries) available at cheaper cost, will the industry loose its value and craze? It seems anyone with the slightest bit of SEO knowledge can give you decent results.
Has it become the playground of unscrupulous freelancers and spammers forcing Google to come up with updates one after another?
What does the situation indicate?
Will SEO be the cheapest service in coming days? Does investing in it become a kid’s game?
Or,
SEO is going to be costlier with days. Where is the tomorrow’s catch line?
What is the future of SEO, as it seems today? We need to consider it from both SEO professionals and business owner’s point of view.
1. Think from SEO professional’s point of view:
- Will corporate ever treat SEO as an established technology field? Is it going to be a serious affair?
- Will online giants recognize and include SEO job as a full-fledged operation? Will they allocate a separate budget for like other advertisement expense?
- Should cheap and low quality SEO-service providers reign in the market and neutralize the over-all good effect?
Finally, will the professionals perish for their pay packages? Since, number of providers (do not ask me about their honesty) are rising, there is a chance, website owners will say “Yes” to cheap proposals.
The bottom line is – how safe a good and ethical SEO consultant’s standpoint is in terms of job satisfaction and value.
Lesson:
Do not get pessimistic! Google is watching everything. No search engine will allow people to garbage web and show them to public. After all, all are here to do business and at some point, we have to be ethical to our customers.
2. Think from Business point of view:
For them, the days are yet to be tougher. If you are already tempted with unsolicited mails, cold calls and willing to go for their low cost SEO options, here are few simple questions for you:
- Are you still expecting someone to arrange pool of in-bound links for your site to rank good?
- Do you still believe that paid inclusions, traditional link building activities (though quick and easy options) will survive gracefully (say for another 5 years), so you can rest in peace?
- What is the viability of SEO techniques that your business is following currently?
- Is this going to be so affordable that any one can do away with SEO for his website and the results will simply follow thereafter?
- Do you move on gut feelings?
Lesson:
Businesses who think, SEO has almost become a layman’s job and who better than Asians can do it in bulk, will regret very soon. Cheap SEO services are not going to stay long. Moreover, this will not add any value to your website ranking or traffic generation. Forget about conversions or building long-term reputation.
You may ask why? Is there any definite reasons or, the judgement is on speculation basis?
Here are the possible citations:
- Stereo type job like – traditional link building, directory submission, article syndication and other automated link generation processes are loosing importance to search engines
- Content farms are no more going to boost you PR value or brings you huge traffic
- Nothing artificial and duplicity in terms of information will get value from users
- Customer and viewer ratings will be prioritized, so your site to get on to top SERPs
- Keyword competition, PR allocation, traffic visits are going to be stringent
Forecasting solution:
- Real marketing knowledge need to be applied along with SEO expertise.
- Off-line marketing concepts should be integrated with latest SEO knowledge. Managing and tracking consumer behaviour will gain importance.
- Local SEO service will earn more credit and demands, which need comprehensive knowledge on local market situation.
Conclusion:
The final effect would be much like this:
- Cheap SEO service consultants will perish a lot. In fact, bringing perfection to this competition level will not be possible for them. They cannot afford high-end technical and marketing solutions at lower costs.
- SEO as an industry is going to earn a distinguished place in IT service domain. It will earn much recognition and respect.
- Skilled and talented SEO professionals will have more power and market demand. Their job is secure, but challenging.
- Number of service providers will reduce as search engines are getting stricter. Because, quality comes with price
- Big time players having good infrastructure, resources, advanced technical support will survive. Cheap providers will fade away gradually.
As it seems, future of SEO was never predictable and will not be ever. However, with all these fine tunings, we can hope – SEO will upscale its grade very soon. Are you ready for it?
SEO needs to be always free, just like online gaming
It won’t be possible ever, I think.
I hope that you’re right in your predictions for the future of SEO. I do think more and more companies are realizing that the cheapest providers aren’t always the best choice. Too many businesses have been burned because they tried to cut corners with their SEO. I know that reputable SEO professionals have the staying power to weather any search engine updates.
Yes, you are very much true. As Provider’s will require talented people to do quality work only, website owners have to go by the new standards. However, it is not a loss for them for sure. With quality work done, they can expect good ROI and long lasting results.
you seem to have something against asian companies . .
There is no point or intention behind it. But, it is better to accept the fact that quality of SEO practices are getting degraded . There are people who just want to learn ABC of it and then go for spamming and creating junks for web. Don’t you agree with me. We get responses and feedback like this from various forums, open discussion platforms.
I want Asian companies to be on the top of SEO field all over the world.
First off to imply that asians provide cheap ineffective short sighted SEO services is a fallacy of hasty generalization. I do hope you are talking about Indians being part of this “Asian” group you are quick to dismiss. This might have been a good article had it not fallen into the trap of self promotion via deflecting blame to a particular race at that. Seriously define your terms and provide real verifiable information than playing this race card. I get more spam mail from Indian companies than “Asian” providers. This should be treated ad nothing more than a fluff article.
Dear Mikpam… very good questions from you.
Let me clarify few of your misjudged points:
1. I never said, all the SEO professionals from India or Asia provide ineffective SEO services. But there are some good percentages of it.
2. It’s a fact that with number of freelancers coming to this industry, SEO packages are getting cheaper with days and too some extent poor quality too.I mentioned majority, not everyone. If you take a close look at bidding processes you will experience it. If you see the content farms, you will know it.
3. There are only 2 races: White Hat SEO service providers and Black Hat SEO providers. No intentional target to Indians for the reason.
The reason of this post – infuse quality and seriousness into SEO practices. We want us to be recognized as a specialized branch of IT services. It is for all of our goodness.
I don’t think cheap providers will ever fade away. There are always people out there who will seek out SEO services and be ready to cut corners to save a few dollars. The change I see happening right now is from the mainstream press coverage of bad SEO, which should lead to more people being aware of the importance of hiring a reputable company or employee(s) instead of going with the lowest bidder.
Also I can’t help but mention that you should probably have a native English speaker proof your work if possible. The article is well structured and coherent, but some awkward grammar and phrasing made it hard to read.
Dear Mike,
Thanks for your reviews. Can you please point out those lines where you found it hard to understand? I will explain to you.
Cheap overseas SEO does not get good results and the risk is too high for any but the least successful companies to take a change on.
Big companies already see the huge value in SEO and there are entire SEO departments in many fortune 1000 companies.
My prediction is that SEO will further merge to cover more holistic marketing, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. After two years in my current position I find myself being involved in lots of online and off-line marketing in addition to my organic search engine optimization and I even get some IT related tasks lately.
Very good observation. This is a new dimension you spoke about. Good going and best of luck!
I think we are going to see drastic changes in the algorithm over the next 2-3 years starting with the recent farmers update. Easy mass submission approaches are no longer going to generate any positive results and social/quality is going to be very important.
You are very much correct.It shows how does quality matter for us?
I think more and more companies realize that the sponsors of the cheapest is not always the best option. Also been burned many of the companies as they try to cut corners with the SEO of their own. I know that SEO professionals have a reputation to stay in power to face any updates search engine.
I think it all depends on how complex the process is going to be in the recent years. Everything depends on what Google does and how it treats SEO process.
Dear sanat,
you have told that, Article marketing, directory marketing , blog marketing will not good effect in ranking. So what type of works is more value in future?
I told traditional and stereo-type processes will loose importance. Directory submission is already taking backfoot slowly.
Article syndication done in automated process will not give much value. You must have seen the aftermath of Google panda updates.Good piece of article with manual submission of it will keep its pace.
I didn’t say anything about Blog marketing.
Let us go by platforms where user interactions are high. It can be social media, high traffic blogs.
Hi,
Nice article..was expecting some more information though.
For a succesful business, I think the most important thing need to do is to find the matching point between customer needs and your expertises.
There are a lot of cheap SEO Companies out there. However my company offers solutions that are reasonable for small businesses but we also service larger companies with bigger budgets. It all comes down to the industry and the competition of keywords. Whether they be local, national or global. There were some very good points in this article.
Price is an importance factor, particular in this crucial and down economy time. Online business owners always try to find such ways that help them to find cheap SEO services to maximize their return of investment.
Companies who believe that the search engine seems to have become a secular work, who can do a lot more than the Asians, the fast of regret.
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