John Mueller Says SEO Will Not Become Obsolete

The best SEO agencies have been preparing their websites for the algorithm updates that Google launched recently. Because of the constant change happening in the SEO industry, online businesses and website owners always hire flexible and reliable SEO agencies to help their sites rank well in search results. Nevertheless, other webmasters and companies still have a fear of SEO becoming obsolete one day.

In a Google Search Central SEO hangout on 2 July, one SEO asked Google's John Mueller about his vision for the future of SEO. In response, Mueller admitted that he does not have a perfect five-minute speech that would convince the community that the future of SEO will be a bright one.

He brought up the common fear that many in the SEO industry are concerned about: Google's advanced machine learning. Many people believe that machine learning will take over the tasks that people manually do once it progresses more in the future. If Google's machine learning algorithms could perfectly understand the sites in search results, then there would be no need for additional search engine optimisation. However, Mueller said that he doesn't think things will go down that path.

He then compared the SEO industry to the web design industry. He noted how the Content Management Systems (CMSs) today did not make website development obsolete even though they are so advanced. Instead, the web design industry adapted and evolved as the CMSs got more advanced, forcing web designers and developers to look for new issues to address.

Mueller also said that new technologies and tools would help people find new and easier ways to analyse their SEO, make better content, or clear structures for their sites.

What he said was similar to how the SEO industry was one or two decades ago. In the past, developers had to make their own HTML or PHP codes, and this required a lot of time and effort. But as time passed by, all of the CMSs improved to the point that anyone can go and create websites without needing to learn HTML codes or server-side basics.

Mueller compared these two industries because he sees SEO heading in that same direction. He suggested that the CMSs of many websites today will handle some of the manual tasks that SEOs do. However, Mueller does not think that all the SEO work will go away. Instead, he predicted that these advanced tools would allow people to do more tasks in ways that work well for search engines.

The new future of SEO that Mueller described seemed largely automated using different tools. For instance, he envisioned a future where SEOs could use a CMS to tweak H1 and H2 tags to ensure that the crucial information is included as a heading on the page.

Opinions are still divided among those in the SEO community. Some marketers and website owners think that Google will make SEO obsolete someday because of their constantly progressing machine learning. On the other hand, Mueller suggested that CMSs will allow for nearly automatic optimisation for search engines.

Nevertheless, there is no sure way of knowing about the future of the SEO industry. Only time can tell what an SEO's role will look like in the future, and Mueller does not think that this profession will die any time soon.

Why SEO Still Matters

There are a lot of reasons why SEO will still matter in the future. As the industry evolves and introduces more advanced tools, bigger issues will also arise, and SEO agencies will always be in demand. Below are some of the things that support this idea:

1. Brand authority and reach

Many millennial customers do not like nor trust advertisements, such as email spam, paid ads, or cold calling, making it hard for marketers who favour such methods. Fortunately, online businesses and site owners can target this demographic using SEO. The customers of this generation seem resistant to traditional advertising tactics and have begun turning to search engines to look for products and services.

SEO works as a form of inbound marketing that businesses can use to attract customers instead of interrupting them with forceful sales tactics that only drive them away.

Moreover, SEOs can broaden their target audience by ranking for long-tail keywords that attract highly targeted traffic. They can also use comparative and question-based key phrases to solidify their brand's authority on a topic. Ranking for descriptive keywords can also be effective as it targets a wider audience.

2. Multichannel approach

SEOs should avoid using a single source for site traffic because the method might dry up too soon or disappear entirely in the future. But Google organic search remains in demand no matter what.

Site owners and online businesses can rank well in search results using white hat SEO tactics. SEOs can get a consistent stream of new leads while generating results using current campaigns.

Although it is not a "set it and forget it" type of strategy, it can still drive traffic and leads on autopilot. Businesses can also outsource SEO and content creation to easily attract organic traffic without neglecting their primary marketing channels.

3. Customer acquisition for locally-focused businesses

SEO is an excellent customer acquisition strategy, especially for local businesses. One can attract more customers to their local stores or sites by outranking other nearby competitors.

By focusing on local SEO, businesses can reach potential clients by targeting users searching in their local area. Google can personalise the search results to the company's geographic area. If they can optimise it correctly, their site can dominate the local search results for their product and services.

To make this more successful, they can fill out their Google My Business profile and other directory profiles, get many great reviews from past customers and do backlink outreach to boost their brand's visibility in local search.

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