A Stumble Down Memory Lane ... The View Is Still The Same

So for most of you this won't be the most relevant of posts I've ever made. But for some of you that occasionally look back at where you've come then it may be interesting.

Whilst on my way to check the location of a meeting I've got in the morning I realised that I'd beaten that path before. I used to walk that way to the Old Street Station when on my way home for providing Workthing.com with SEO consultancy.

It must have been about eight or nine years ago that I was last year - before the company went bump.

I started thinking about the strategies I was recommending. Then I realised they're pretty much no different than I recommend today.

Here's what I was suggesting to them:

1) Clear out the crap.
I suggested that they streamline the route from homepage to relevant content.

2) De-dupe
They used some microsites to target different recruitment niches, but they were too similar to each other. I tried to get them to create relevant content and use it on those sites (they already had great content on the main site)

3) Obtain more relevant links from industry authority sites to those microsites whilst trying to get more recruitment links to the main.

4) Focus more widely on relevant keywords and devise a format across sectors that will attract visitors that are more likely to convert.

5) Greater accountability of the data set and track goals more accurately.

6) Increase the likelihood that visitors would enthuse about the site and recommend it to others.

It's remarkable that these six objectives are still 100% relevant today. So has SEO changed in the last eight or nine years? My view is that it hasn't as much as people think.

To me SEO has always been about writing good content, content that focuses on your head terms, but extends into the tail. It's always been about getting good quality links. Even when I first started link building in late 1997 I always tried to get links from relevant sites. I never tried to get them from totally unrelated, but highly-valued (in general) sites. I've always tried to account for my SEO actions and gauge the success of everything I've done. So to me, the core principles of SEO have not changed during the past decade.

All that's changed is that you've got to work a hundred times harder because the competitive landscape is much tougher.

Here's to the next decade.