The Future of SEO

When people hear about SEO, most of the time they think about the sneaky tactics that SEO specialists do behind the back of search engines. Well, this is an antiquated view. Sure, some aspects of SEO have dwelled upon such sneaky tactics in the past but these are not the whole of SEO. These tactics are actually a dying form of SEO. Search Engines are fixing their flaws and are ultimately getting smarter.

But what does this have to do with the future of SEO?

This is just to make things clear. The future of SEO is not exactly an entirely different landscape from what we’re already looking at. The core concepts of SEO that have worked in the past are still working and will still work in the future. It’s just that it will get more streamlined and all the bad stuff will eventually die down.

So what are these core concepts of SEO?

Ultimately, it comes down to what users will want in a website. These are high-quality content, high-quality backlinks, a good site structure, and a little bit on page load speed.

1. High Quality Content – I know you’ve heard this before. I know it’s such a cliché but it has and will always be the main reason that users come to a site. If you have content that people want, search engines will respect that and ultimately reward your site with better rankings.
2. High Quality Backlinks – This comes down to Google’s roots where rankings were mostly considered from the number of sites that link to yours. It is basically a vote of confidence for your site similar to how university papers and journals cite other papers and journals that have quality content and are relevant to theirs. And when you get your links from trusted and high-authority sites, it will make your site even more attractive to search engines.
3. Good Site Structure – A good site structure is also a factor. Users normally wouldn’t spend time on a site that is confusing to browse through. This has led to search engine guidelines stating that there is a preference for sites with good site structure. Search engines crawlers are now smarter with the way they crawl through a site. If they find your site easy to crawl through, then it will reward your site with a higher ranking.
4. Page Load Speed – This is another factor that has always been the outcry of search engine guidelines. As long as your site provides sufficient page load speed that enhances the user experience, then people will prefer to stay on your site and search engines will certainly take a note of that.

These are the factors that will make a user come and spend time on a site. And search engines are steadily improving their algorithms to provide their users with sites that follow these factors.

The future is hard to predict but as the saying goes: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” With the dying down of blackhat/unethical SEO, these core concepts will be even more important and valuable.