Search engine optimisation is dead. Long live search marketing.

I admit I’m playing fast and loose here with some fairly well established terminology but I’m feeling controversial today. And, to a certain extent, it’s Erin Everhart’s fault.

Erin wrote an article for Mashable earlier this week entitled 6 Best Practices for Modern SEO and it’s worth five minutes of your time.

I can’t say our views are exactly the same but she raises some interesting points about what search success looks like these days.

I couldn’t agree more when she talks about putting people in front of robots when it comes to optimising keywords. I’d argue that, in fact, it’s about putting people in front of robots (and algorithms) when it comes to everything bar the technical aspects of search marketing.

On this subject, I love this quote from Google’s Matt Cutts:

“One piece of advice I give to SEO masters is, don’t chase after Google’s algorithm, chase after your best interpretation of what users want, because that’s what Google’s chasing after.”

Let’s agree that SEO is, “the process of taking a page built by humans and making it easily consumable for both other humans and for search engine robots”. (SEOmoz)

SEO tactics will change but search marketing logic will, inevitably, stay the same:

“Search marketing is about putting your brand in front of people that are in the market for your products and services but who haven’t, as yet, made a brand decision.” (Stefan Hull)

You’re probably thinking this isn’t the week in search… it’s more like a ramble.

But it’s something more than that. It’s about more than the week in search.

It’s about the future. In the meantime, and if you’ve got a business, get your Google+ page set up. It’s the future too. apparently.