👾Leveling Up 👾

SEO as we know it is dead.

15 years ago, Google had the lion's share of the attention. Facebook and YouTube were in their infant stages, Amazon wasn't as strong as it is now, Instagram didn't exist, podcasts weren't as big.

Now, the attention is spread across different social platforms, LLMs are starting to eat away at search share, and SEO is just getting plain harder.

Links are not as effective as they once were (not to mention that link building is a thankless job). 

It's harder to rank because so many industries are so mature. The sites that have strong domain authority continue to rank for keywords that they don't have business ranking for (see Forbes).

Blogging isn't as popular as it was before. Many people 'blog' primarily to try to rank for more longtail keywords.

It's also harder to attract links naturally from blogs. People were more likely to do so in the past because their attention wasn't so spread thin and blogging was 'the main thing'. 

If you want to rank nowadays, you'll have to dig deeper. That means building a product and giving it away for free to attract tons of links (Ubersuggest is a good example). 

Or it might mean garnering up resources to go acquire a site that has high domain authority and ranks for relevant keywords. Big bonus if they have an e-mail list and an engaged community.

Old way of doing SEO:

• Content for content's sake

• Acquiring mass quantities of links

• Guest posting

• Infographics

• Exact match anchor text

• Keyword stuffing

• Focusing on desktop only

I'm not saying everything above no longer works, it's just not as effective as it was before.

New way of doing SEO:

• YouTube

• TikTok

• Amazon

• AI-assisted content

• Human-assisted programmatic SEO

• Website M&A

• Diversifying to other searchable channels where your audience is hanging out

• Thoughtful link building

• Creating the best possible content, and then repurposing it

• A/B testing headlines and meta descriptions

tl;dr the SEO industry needs to evolve and not hold anything too sacred. Marketing 101 is about bringing people to the point of sale. It isn't about clinging to past strategies and tactics.

Eric Siu :)

You Are Invited To My Webinar

On Tuesday August 13th at 5:30pm (BST), I’m inviting all marketers to my latest webinar.

It’s called The Biggest Marketing Trends You Need to Know in Q3 and Q4 of 2024.

Inside the webinar, you’ll learn:

• Is SEO dead? (Hint: It's not if you're leveraging social the right way.)

• How to use AI to supercharge your search rankings

• How to leverage YouTube for maximum reach in less time

• How a simple reframe built a $13.8B company (and how you can apply it to your business)

• How to use fake haters to blow up your engagement

• Why you should increase your prices in 2024

Spots are going quickly – make sure to register today (link).

See you there.

Links You Might Like

Here are some of the best links I’ve found since our last email. 

🎯 SEO

The collusion of Reddit and Google (link)

✉️ Email 

9 tips on growing your email list (link)

📈 Marketing

Nike stock has tanked – was performance marketing the reason? (link)

🤖 AI

Why SearchGPT might struggle to threaten Google (link)

✏️ Writing

Minimalism and maximalism in writing (link)

How I Can Help You

If you enjoy this newsletter and would like to collaborate with me, there are a few options available:

1. You can apply to work with my marketing agency (link)

2. You can join my Skool community for agency owners (link)

Interested in working at Single Grain? We have some new open roles:

• Business Development Representative (link)

• Paid Media Manager (link)

• SEO Manager (link)