Does SEO still work? As someone who's been writing relatively highly cited, highly linked, and highly read content since 2011, I say: Yes, but…
Yes, but
What does that mean? Well, it's clear that content marketing and SEO are the magic and miracle of the internet. Google, and now other GPT-related engines, will independently find your content and, if it's really valuable, will eventually promote it for you. For free. And to potential customers! Amazing.
It is a gift. On a high level, 2024 is as big a gift as 2011 was.
Organic search has been the largest source of SaaStr readers for 13 years running.
But I can tell you what our data shows: We literally have 100 times more quality content than we did from 2011 to 2014. Our content pages continue to rank higher. And our output has actually increased. We now publish 20+ quality pieces of content per week, 4 great newsletters, and have 1 million social media followers today.
And more or less… our SEO is the same.
All of these efforts remain in the same place when it comes to driving organic viewers, readers, traffic, etc. In fact, if you include “organic social”, your Twitter/X or LinkedIn posts will essentially get buried and won’t really work if they have external links.
I see this as a reminder that marketing strategies still work and they all still work, it's just that many of them require a lot more planning, effort and energy to work the way they did before.
Can you take on that challenge?
Don’t expect things to work out in 2024 if you’re just doing the right amount of content, SEO, webinars, events, etc.
SEO: Still a mystery. And still magical. Year 10.
