Google has always been a crucial part of a decent digital marketing strategy, especially when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).It has enabled businesses to garner free organic traffic depending on the quality of the page. But recently several brands have faced the issues of SEO traffic declining and when it was analyzed and investigated on the same, it was found out that this issue was mainly occurring due to the recent Google Search page redesign. Due to this, organic links got moved way down on the search results page. This issue has troubled several brands now and then and they are consistently figuring out on how to fix the current situation.
One suggestion that was put out by an expert was to start spending the money advertising with Google and to get back up on the top of the page. It is one of the strangest things that an SEO expert can say as his services hold no more value in this current scenario.
With this, it can be concluded that SEO is dying as a strategy to boost ecommerce companies and paid search marketing is the major source of gaining audiences with the help of search engines now especially when Google is concerned.
Google Search: The Beginnings
As soon as Google became popular in 1998, it has become an integral part of any good digital marketing strategy. During the initial days, you just needed to have a good SEO plan to help you get free organic ranking and get top on the search results page. Search results were pretty straightforward and were easy to understand. Based on the content of one’s page, he was shown free organic results along with its relevance to the keyword that was being searched.
Back in 2000, Google started Google AdWords. Here, you could get on the top of search results by running paid text ads. To achieve good results, you need a solid SEO strategy to get free organic traffic along with a decent keyword bidding strategy to get paid traffic.
In 2002, Google Shopping was launched which enabled the ecommerce companies to showcase their product listing with a pay-per-click model. They had a separate “Shopping” tab on Google. During that time, this did not affect the traditional search results.
Finally, in 2004 when Google Launch came into the market, it allowed ecommerce companies that had several retail locations to promote and advertise their products across different locations. This helped in localizing the advertising to the user location. People could see an ad for local businesses instead of a national ad. Moreover, it didn’t impact the page design at all.
Google: The Current Scenario
Over the past few months, there has been a change in the Google Search design. Earlier when staying true to the organic search results was considered important and you could not clutter the page with advertising. Today you will not find free organic search results on the first page. Every single thing on the website’s page is a paid placement which has maximized the ad revenues for Google.
The Death of SEO
With such advancements in the Google Search Page Redesign, it can be reckoned that for e-commerce companies that are selling services or products, SEO is almost dying. Several Google users prefer the first page of results. In such a situation if organic search results can be taken to the top of the page based on the current design, then there is no point in focusing on SEO.
You will need to shell out more money to Google to promote your business through Google Ads, Google Shopping placements, and Google Local.
One thing is understandable after all this. You can still continue with the traditional SEO strategy to garner organic rankings. There are few Google users who will scroll down the first page and even smaller numbers of users who will browse further pages. But the amount of SEO traffic that you will receive with organic SEO, it would be much less than what was that you received before the Google page redesign due to its dominant market share position in the industry.
There is a possibility that Google will soon figure out how they can take over the advertising over every single page results which also include the long-tail keywords. In most of the cases, Google Shopping will acquire the major paid link present on the top of the page, Google Adwords will be at the middle of the page and there will be only few free organic results at the bottom of the landing page.
Concluding Thoughts
If you are figuring out what best can you do to spend the money, then it is clear that optimizing the website for free organic traffic is certainly not effective in the current scenario. It will not take you far and make it harder for you to drive an ROI.