The State Of SEO

Where is the SEO industry today? Is it headed in the right direction, in an off direction, in no direction, or going sour?

One would think that the SEO industry is in a state of poor health if you visit the forums and read what people are saying. Google is broke, Microsoft and Yahoo are merging, SEOs the world over are corrupt … these are just a few of the rants, whines, wimps, and grunts you’ll hear from the ranks of forum posters and moderators in every corner of the web. But I think there is plenty of reason to believe that the SEO industry is in greater health today than it ever has been, even if we are in the middle of a recession.

For one thing, Google isn’t broke. It isn’t perfect, but it isn’t broke. Microsoft and Yahoo aren’t merging. MS made an offer and Yahoo has yet to seriously entertain the offer. Some SEOs are corrupt but many more are hard working professionals who can help businesses small and large navigate the search field. Not only that, but every day, more and more businesses go online who need the help that SEOs can offer.

Ask.com has recently added a new feature that I think will increase its traffic. Whether or not that will translate into more searches and more SERP-related advertising remains to be seen. But the new Ask news page looks every bit as good as Yahoo’s, Google’s, or MSNs news pages. MSN is improving its PPC features, Yahoo is struggling but they’ve never struggled so much that they couldn’t recover. Google, well, Google is just Google.

There are plenty more opportunities for SEO work than ever before. There is SEO work at the local level, at the global level, and everywhere in between. There are opportunities for business owners to learn their own SEO and for SEOs to step in and help businesses where it’s needed the most. Whether the SEO work be website content optimization, article optimization, blog optimization, or another branch of the growing field, SEO is still thriving. Soon, podcast, image, and video optimization will be brand new specialties and the opportunities will continue to expand.

I’m optimistic about the field of SEO and about online marketing in general. I’m looking forward to the new opportunities that arise in the near and far future. SEO is only getting better.