Ever get that spooky feeling that Google somehow knows exactly what you mean, even when you put a barely-coherent set of words in the search box? You're not alone. The search giant has an uncanny ability to un-focus on the keywords in the search query and apply behavioral, content, context, and temporal/historical signals to give you exactly the answer you want.
For marketers and SEOs, this poses a frustrating challenge. Do we still optimize for keywords? The answer is "sort of." But I think I can show you how to best think about this in a few quick visuals, using a single search query.
First... A short story.
I sent a tweet
over the weekend about an old Whiteboard Friday video. Emily Grossman,
longtime friend, all-around marketing genius, and
official-introducer-of-millenial-speak-to-GenXers-like-me replied.
[1][2][3]
Ha ha Emily. I already made fun of my own mustache so...
Anywho, I searched Google for "soz[4]." Not because I didn't know what it means. I can read between lines. I'm hip. But, you know, sometimes a Gen-Xer wants to make sure.
The results confirm my guess, but they also helped illustrate a point of frequent frustration I have when trying to explain modern vs. classic SEO. I threw together these seven visuals to illustrate.
There you have it friends. Classic SEO ranking inputs still matter. They can still help. They're often the difference between making it to the top 10 vs. having no shot. But too many SEOs get locked into the idea that rankings are made up of a combination of the "Old School Five":
- Keyword use
- Links to the page