What Comes After the Decline of Keywords? A Few Thoughts from a Milwaukee SEO Company
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As a Milwaukee SEO company, we always have to discuss and pitch our services to clients in a way that connects with them, and shows them that we’re the right choice for their organization. Keywords and rankings are always part of the conversation, naturally.
Since the beginning of search engine time, there was the inherent need for SEO. Of course, when everything first came about, the term “SEO” was not established as something people should be doing, nor was it established as an job position at a company (whether that be internally or externally), or even an industry. Of course, people knew that if they put “keywords” into their content, keyword and description meta tags, etc., that would influence where their sites ranked. And so began the people’s infatuation with keywords as one of the most important metrics to track and work for.
But, what happens after the importance and application of keywords goes away?
This is a question that we’ve been asking ourselves for quite a while, and one that often times spurs a great deal of discussion (and sometimes opinionated arguments) among those in our industry. However, it’s also a question we bring up to our clients—what happens when we can no longer report and show value from the keywords they’ve been so long instructed to care about? What then?
This topic of conversation was initially touched on locally, when a SEO tool provider (Raven) made the decision to abandon keyword ranking reports in order to keep their access the Google Adwords API for keyword research. While this is not directly applicable to the issue of 100% keyword not being provided, it did start addressing the other side of the general “keyword focus” issue, and that is of rankings.
So what do we do about two situations we can no longer (and one that we actually could never) fully control?
I think the answer, albeit a large one, is to change the focus of the industry with regards to what needs to be done and how it should be reported; and more so, to change the focus of our clients (businesses, organizations, etc.) through education and hard-earned results.
The fact of the matter is that digital marketing is like traditional advertising and marketing in that it actually takes work to be successful. It’s not just smoke and mirrors. It’s not just $99 / mo. from some company from India that will “put keywords into your meta keywords tag” and “have to you ranking #1 in two months guaranteed”. No—it’s a real job, done by real people, and is a real investment for your company (or cost, depending on how you want to look at it, which is a completely different blog post).
Okay, so if you made it this far, you either know what I’m talking about, or your interested to see where I’m going with this all.
This topic stems from recent information that came out (two days ago) that the organic search referrer “(not provided)” will be dramatically increasing (and already has) due to Google rolling out full encryption of their organic search data. If you’re not apprised to what this means, we recommend reading up here.
Given that most of our clients are concerned with keywords and rankings, the changes that Google is making will heavily impact what they [clients] have come to focus and rely on. It’s important to start planning ahead (if you’re a progressive conservative) to determine how you are going to measure, project, and use digital marketing to improve your business, and in a way that is not reliant on keyword traffic and keyword rankings.
As I’ve said so many times before, and as was coined by the great Will from Seer Interactive, you have to do #RCS (real company s#!*) to get real business results.
Have you asked yourself lately what the outcome of your digital marketing efforts were? If you own a local service business and one of your primary goals is generating leads, are you focusing more on the leads you’re generating or the keywords that you’re ranking for? I can almost guarantee that most people are focusing on the latter (though, not everyone, thankfully).
It’s time to start setting real goals, start working to measure your efforts, and start looking at this “online marketing stuff” as an investment that you’re using to get positive results from, as compared to a cost that you’re hoping to spend as little money on as possible, while still getting positive results. If you look at it from the latter perspective, you will surely lose over time. If you look at and approach it as an investment, you’ll end up with something that provides value to you consistently over time, as any good investment should.
So, what comes after the decline of keywords being a measureable, attainable metric for your business? I hope by now you know the answer to that.
If you’re ready to start looking at how to use that answer, then give us a call, we’re more than happy to see if we’re the right fit for you and your business!
If you have thoughts, comments, or insights on this topic and want to share them, feel free to do so in the comments below. Heck, we encourage it. Let’s have a conversation!
