SEO Yesterday!
I started in the internet marketing arena young in 1998. I had created my owner website at the age of 13 selling motorized scooters (Go-Peds) online, and within 2 years was selling over $400,000 worth of product online per year while the internet was still in its infancy.  Now, I want to show you the differences of SEO back then, SEO today and my opinion on SEO in the future!

SEO Yesterday was simple, back in 1998 you were trying to impress search engines like AltaVista, Excite, Yahoo, Lycos and AOL. Shortly thereafter Google, Inktomi & Goto were becoming major players in the search engine arena and making a major impact.

SEO Yesterday was easy! No joke, if you understood the simple site architecture of navigation and meta/title tags you could become a leader in almost any industry without obtaining many links to your website.  The reason was simple, not many people took the time to focus on improving website traffic - they were just trying to learn how to build websites.

I remember creating websites that would top the search engines for major phrases after 1-2 months of effort, but now the game has changed - BIG TIME!

Companies like Overture were dominating the paid advertising rhealm and beginning to see massive profits that very few website’s had seen in the past from online business.
SEO Today!
SEO Today is an interesting mix of a vast number of key factors that must be considered to succeed online!  Website’s will not succeed in natural search engine results without excellent website structure and powerful links to back up their website.  Website’s also take several months before you will see much progress in natural search rankings. The internet has become a cess pool of website’s and information pertaining to every topic known to man - therefore competition is steep and you can’t expect to become a top player after a few weeks of effort.

Another major factor of search engine optimization in todays industry is social media, and very few have figured out how to really benefit from social media; however the frontrunners in this industry are doing very well and making millions of dollars in advertising money from their niche.  In order to succeed in social media you really need to be an excellent writer, an expert on your topic and you need to find a way to set yourself or your product apart as unique and inspiring so that people share your information!

Another major factor of todays SEO is that the pace of natural and paid search engine marketing progression is speeding up at an alarmingly fast pace.  Companies are paying massive amounts of money each month to obtain links and promote content to keep a top 10 listing in the search engines!

Companies succeeding in natural search results today either have an amazing website with great content that promotes inbound links, or else they are investing massive amounts of time and money in to obtaining inbound links to maintain those top rankings. After all, todays search engine marketing is similar to a popularity contest, the website with the most high quality (and targeted) inbound links wins top rankings.

SEO today has seen an influx in website’s paying for links from other popular websites to increase search engine rankings. In some instances website owners are paying thousands of dollars for a single link, which is an incredible number when you think of the fact that they are just buying a link that often times receives little or no clicks at all.
SEO Tomorrow
SEO tomorrow is going to be vicious and full of twists and turns as the search engines attempt to improve the results provided to their customers (people searching).  SEO tomorrow will require a lot more innovation for newcomers to obtain top natural search engine rankings - because a large number of websites already have a tremendous and popular presence online in almost every niche.

SEO Tomorrow I believe will become much more personalized - however website popularity will still play a major factor.  Search engines will attempt to make search more personalized to individual users experiences by tracking trends and searching habits.

I would not be surprised to see the search engines determine where website’s should rank depending on how long visitors stay on websites and they may even take more emphasis on bounce rates. This may not be the most fair ways of determining results, however it would most likely improve search results as a whole.  I believe that website’s should focus on improving user experiences and focus on keeping visitors reading your website for extended periods of time. Search engines are in the business of providing quality results, and they are always working to find ways to provide the best results.

Either way, my overall opinion of natural search engine optimization yesterday, today and tomorrow is simple; hard work pays off! Many constantly dream of success, while others rise up and work relentlessly to obtain it each and every day!

Joel McLaughlin | DataFlurry

DataFlurry is a Professional Search Engine Optimization company based out of Phoenix Arizona. DataFlurry employs several SEO consultants to help in organic and paid search.