Is Traditional SEO Dead? The 2021 Argument, and What Actually Killed It

Is the SEO industry dying?

Yes, in Simon's view the SEO industry is dying, or at least the traditional version of it. The number of SEO professionals apparently watching his profile at the moment makes him think they have got voodoo dolls out for him. His position is blunt: if you work in the SEO industry, get ready, because you need to be working on video, and if you are not recommending video to your clients now, and one of your clients is watching this, get your SEO agency sacked, because questions, answers, video and voice are where the industry is going.

Part of his argument is about the business model. If someone tells you it takes months and months to rank for a competitive keyword, when video, used correctly, can rank within 24 to 48 hours for really competitive terms, it raises the question of why you would pay a monthly fee for no results until month six, rather than paying only once you actually rank. We are in lockdown at the time of this recording, the whole agency landscape is changing fundamentally, and the SEO industry, worth around £80 billion a year, has to change too, because Google wants it to. Google wants video over traditional SEO.

Is SEO still relevant in 2021?

Yes, SEO is still relevant, it is just the way it is done that has to change. It will be video SEO from here: make the video, rank it, and forget blogging, link building and, in Simon's words, "all that rubbish".

How big is the SEO industry, and where does the money go?

The SEO industry is worth around £80 billion a year, globally, and a good chunk of that will be in the UK, since the UK is probably ahead of the US on this. It is a massive industry compared with TV and other channels, but Simon's fundamental problem is that a good chunk of it is wasted money. As he puts it, echoing the old line about not knowing which half of your marketing budget is working, you certainly do not know with SEO. You get a nice report and an excuse at the end of the month, and the reports themselves are pretty much proven, but his fundamental problem with the SEO industry is that it does not tell you what you are actually making, your return on investment, the way paid ads can show you exactly what you got from what you spent.

Why is SEO still important, even if the method has to change?

SEO is important because it is your brand: it needs to be front and centre, drive clients and enquiries, and grow your business, ideally as part of an omni-channel approach rather than the be all and end all. If Simon has a strong SEO presence and his brand ranks for a lot of different terms, nobody can take that away from him overnight. Compare that with a business built entirely on paid strategy: if someone comes to buy that business, they can simply look at what is running on paid, see there is a website, and replicate it. If instead you rank organically for your terms, that is about your brand, and it builds the brand for you, so people are buying the brand itself, not just its ability to generate customers.

How much do big companies spend on SEO?

A small SEO account typically runs to around £1,500 to £3,000 a month, while big companies are spending tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands.

Why is video taking over SEO?

Frankly, because Google wants video over anything else at the moment, and Simon regards it as the number one thing a business has to do right now.

Where does search end up: video or voice?

Simon believes search ends up mostly in voice, eventually, in a Minority Report style world where, if he wants something, he simply asks his device for it. The devices are already listening and learning, trying to work out what the correct answers to questions are, so once Google and others learn how to deliver the right content, it develops into voice. In the meantime, it is video.

Personally, at the start of 2021, he thinks voice is starting to get a little traction, but compares it to Betamax versus VHS: Betamax was probably the better product, but nobody used it because everyone was already on VHS. The same pattern repeated moving from VHS to CD, then DVD, and now barely anyone uses Blu-ray, because streaming took over instead. Traditional search has been around in some form for about 25 years, and video search is still in its infancy but gaining traction as more content is produced. You need video to make voice search work properly, and you need people to program the voice engines, so his guess is that over the next five years video really takes over search completely, with voice perhaps flying by the end of the decade, though he admits he might be wrong and it could happen sooner. His actual prediction, on camera, is somewhere around 2033 or 2034, a little longer than the optimistic end of the decade estimate.