Why SEO is More Art Than Science

In my multiple years writing content and executing SEO plans for a software company in Boise, Idaho, I've come to discover a few things - competitors will copy your ideas without shame, headlines inspire, and amazing things can happen in the SERP with a little elbow grease. And, this may be controversial, but I've also discovered that SEO is more art than science. Much more.

In fact, my most creative work comes from SEO initiatives. Working on SEO is the time when I close all my calendars, landing pages, and AdWords, and just write.

When clients and friends ask me about the best SEO techniques to rank for such-and-such keyphrase, I almost immedaitely ask them their thoughts on that subject - what is your unique view on the topic that you're trying to rank for?  Do you think others may also feel that way, too?  Do you have specialized experience in this area that may be helpful for others?

My most successful SEO projects, the ones that improved rankings significantly AND produced leads, have nearly all been generated by creative, articulate, and unique blog posts.

You see, SEO in 2018 is not really about semantic markup. I mean, it kindof is, in the sense that it still makes a difference, but search engines (Google in particular) are smart enough to see what's behind the markup.  The algorithms are now built to determine if, and to what extend, your comapny is a reliable source of information.

Furthermore, modern web publishing platforms are typicically already armed with the infrastructure to ensure your pages meet basic SEO standards, so the "science" of SEO is now less of a worry for most marketers.

According to Blue Fountain Media in an article for Huffington Post, "We’ve worked with companies in a wide range of industries, but the one thing that holds true for all of these different clients is that investing in the creation of high quality content is the only way to see real, substantive improvements in their organic search rankings. There’s value to building a site that has an SEO-friendly structure, and to putting technical optimizations in place from the get-go, but neither of these things will do enough to impact visibility in the long run if deep, meaningful, quality content isn’t also present. "*

My takeaway for readers: next time you want to improve search rankings (which should really be all the time), go talk to a WRITER first, not your web team.

*https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/content-marketing-seo-how-quality-content-helps_us_59d392e9e4b03905538d184d