In a posting for PaidContent, Ben Elowitz writes that SEO is dead–killed by by “SMO,” or Social Media Optimization. He says readers are now going to content sites, not because of a search, but because of a link provided by a friend on Facebook. He then rhapsodizes how this could lead to a time when good content is what people are after–not keywords and the like.
Over the past five years, Web publishing has been so heavily dominated by search engine optimization (SEO) that, to many publishing executives, the right keywords have become far more important than their sites’ actual content or audience. But this movement toward SEO has been dangerous, as it’s moved publishers’ eye off their most important job of creating great content, and onto the false goals of keywords, hacks, paid links, and technical engineering that their audience doesn’t know or care about.
I hope he’s right, but it’s best to remember that there’s that thing Lewis Mumford called the Myth of the Machine: we always think the latest invention will lead to our finally becoming less vulgar (when TV was invented, we thought it meant we’d all watch cultural programs–HA HA HA).
The death of SEO could also mean (given that Elowitz’s conjectures on where traffic will be coming from is correct) that we’ll be living in a hall of mirrors: only our friends will give us news. Personally, I get my news through Google Reader, a different kettle of fish in many ways (although Reader has a social aspect). I’m not sure where that lies on the matrix. And, while Facebook is what everyone talks about, Twitter is better on click-throughs.
The death of SEO has been predicted before. The last one I recall said Google Instant has killed SEO. Maybe SEO will die like that final scene in the 70s movie, Murder on the Orient Express: everyone is killing it, because it deserves to die.
