{"id":223859,"date":"2020-03-13T15:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qcsglobal.com\/marketing\/is-seo-dead-a-data-driven-answer\/"},"modified":"2020-04-18T17:10:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T11:40:40","slug":"is-seo-dead-a-data-driven-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/is-seo-dead-a-data-driven-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

SEO has been changing drastically over the years.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Google made 516 algorithm changes<\/a>. That number increased to 1,653 in 2016 and to 3,234 in 2018. We don\u2019t have data for the last couple of years, but still, you can bet that the number is continually going up.<\/p>\n

With over 9 algorithm changes a day, it\u2019s safe to say that it is no longer easy to manipulate or game Google.<\/p>\n

So, is SEO dead?<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s look at the data and from there I\u2019ll show you
\nwhat you should do.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Is SEO dead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Do you know how many searches take place on Google each day?<\/p>\n

Roughly
\n5.6 billion searches per day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s roughly 2 trillion<\/em> searches each year.<\/p>\n

Although that\u2019s a lot of searches, there is also a lot of
\ncontent being created.<\/p>\n

There are roughly a billion blogs on the web<\/a>. <\/p>\n

There are so many blogs that you can find an excessive amount of content on most topics out there.<\/p>\n

For example, if you look at the long-tail phrase, \u201cwhat is digital marketing\u201d, there are only 11,300 global searches a month but a whopping 665,000 pieces of content trying to answer that question.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

In other words, the supply is much greater than the demand.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see even more of this for head terms. Just look at
\nthe phrase \u201cbanana\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

640,300 global searches seem like a high number but there are 880,000,000 million results. Sure, some of those results may not be on the food, banana, but still, that\u2019s a lot of content compared to the search volume.<\/p>\n

You can still find search phrases where there is more search volume than content but the trend is continually increasing in which content production is exceeding search demand.<\/p>\n

On top of that, Google is turning into an answer engine in which they are answering people\u2019s questions without them having to go to a website.<\/p>\n

According to Dejan SEO<\/a>,
\nthey saw CTRs drastically decrease once Google started answering questions.
\nJust look at this weather search query:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Their clicks from weather-related queries went from 46% all the way down to 7%.<\/p>\n

This trend has become so common that the percentage of traffic that Google drives to organic listings (SEO results) has been decreasing over time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

So, does this mean SEO is dead?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually the opposite.<\/p>\n

SEO is not dead<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With all of the data, how can that be the case?<\/p>\n

First off, all marketing channels become statured over time. It\u2019s just a question of when.<\/p>\n

You can say the same thing about Facebook, Instagram,
\nTwitter, and even email marketing.<\/p>\n

Heck, just look at the image below. It was the first banner ad on the Internet. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Can you guess what company created that banner ad? It was
\nATT.<\/p>\n

Of the people who saw it, 44% of them clicked on it<\/a>. Now banner ads generate an average click-through rate of 0.5%.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an enormous drop.<\/p>\n

And, as I mentioned above, it\u2019s with all channels. Just look at Instagram engagement rates<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if it is a sponsored post or an organic post, the trend on Instagram is that engagement is going down.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why you are seeing people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone promoting their phone numbers all over Instagram.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

That way they can communicate with their fans directly
\nwithout having to deal with algorithms or platforms decreasing their engagement.<\/p>\n

But even with those decreasing numbers, you are seeing sponsored posts on Instagram surging by 150%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, people are still spending money because they
\nare seeing an ROI or generating enough value in their eyes.<\/p>\n

And the same is happening with digital
\nad spending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The numbers are on the rise because companies are generating
\nan ROI.<\/p>\n

So, how is SEO still not dead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As I explained above, just because the metrics aren’t going in your favor doesn\u2019t mean that a channel is dead.<\/p>\n

Just look at my search traffic on NeilPatel.com. <\/p>\n

Not only do I have to deal with Google\u2019s algorithm like you, but my competition includes other marketers who know what I know\u2026 yet I am still able to grow my search traffic even with Google\u2019s decreasing CTRs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

When you look at search as a whole (and I am not only talking about on Bing and Google as people also search on other sites and platforms as well) Google still dominates market share with a whopping 94%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

People still use Google and prefer them as their method of search. But what\u2019s changed is how Google is being used.<\/p>\n

It used to be where you would use platforms like Instagram
\nfor discovery and Google for commerce (purchasing).<\/p>\n

The trend has switched over the years in which Instagram is
\nbeing heavily used for commerce and Google is mainly used as a discovery engine.<\/p>\n

Just look at this case study by Olay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olay sells products related to skincare. One of their products happens to reduce darkness under your eyes.<\/p>\n

So, they used to push heavily on ads that sold their
\nproducts directly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

But the moment they changed their ads to focus on education by teaching people how to reduce dark circles under their eyes instead of forcing people to buy their products, their ROI went through the roof.<\/p>\n

By sending people to educational-based content first (and then selling through the content), they were able to increase click-throughs by 87%, decrease their cost per click by 30%, and increase conversions by 100%.<\/p>\n

This is a prime example of how more people are using Google as a discovery engine first instead of a commerce engine.<\/p>\n

SEO isn\u2019t dying it is just changing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Now that you know that Google is shifting to a discovery
\nengine (for both paid and organic listings), there are a few other things you
\nneed to know if you want to dominate the organic listings.<\/p>\n

1: Google wants to rank sites you want to see<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Their algorithm core focus isn\u2019t backlinks or keyword density, or a specific SEO metric… the focus is on the user experience.<\/p>\n

If a site has millions of backlinks but users hate it, the site won\u2019t rank well in the long run. <\/p>\n

Look at this case study of the \u201cbest grilled steaks<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rand Fishkin had all of his social followers do the
\nfollowing:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Within 70 minutes, the listing jumped to the top spot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

This is what I mean by user signals. You, the end-user, control how Google adjusts rankings.<\/p>\n

2. People don\u2019t just use Google. Google gathers data from everywhere<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n

Google knows you spend hours a day on your mobile device and hours on other sites and applications that aren\u2019t controlled or owned by Google.<\/p>\n

So, when they are figuring out what to rank and where to
\nrank it, they aren\u2019t just looking at their own dataset.<\/p>\n

They crawl things like social media and use social signals
\nto help them better improve their results.<\/p>\n

For example, here is a case study on how Google is using social media for search discovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if you hate the social web, you need to use it more. Not only can it help with your site\u2019s indexing but it can also help with brand building, which indirectly will help boost your rankings as well.<\/p>\n

Here are some articles to follow to help boost your social
\nmedia presence:<\/p>\n