Search Engine Optimization is a constantly evolving process that changes almost as fast as the Internet itself. Not every announced change, however, takes hold.

Unique, Quality Content is a must for effective on-page and off-page SEO

“At this point, the word ‘change’ is pretty much passé in the SEO community,” said Pratik Dholakiya, the Founder of The 20 Media, a content marketing agency specializing in content & data-driven SEO and PRmention, a digital PR agency. “Every year, we proclaim that SEO is changing. Some of those changes don’t play out. Others take us by surprise. Sometimes those changes are overstated. Other times, we find agencies burying their heads in the sand.”

Dholakiya says that Google has permanently changed SEO with its Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird algorithms. “As Google continues to introduce more ranking signals like behavioral data analysis, machine learning-based content analysis, and who knows what else, SEO becomes increasingly user-centric.”

Offer Clear Value to Your Website Visitors with Useful Content

One thing that never seems to change, though, is the need for a website to offer its visitors something of value. Some analysts insist that more and more, SEO is going to be about a website having great content. “If you expect to rank in Google in 2014, you’d better have a quality offering, not based entirely on manipulation, or old school tactics,” wrote Shaun Anderson on the hobo-web.co.uk website. “Google raising the quality bar ensures a higher level of quality in online marketing (above the very low quality we’ve seen over the last years). It involves heavy investment in on page content, website architecture and promotion. If you don’t take that route, you’ll find yourself chased down by Google’s algorithms at some point in the coming year.”

“High quality content is outweighing large amounts of keyword-stuffed, low quality content these days, and the future content remains on that path,” said Javier Colayco, on the SEOSiteCheckup website. “Keywords are becoming less relevant as the algorithms are designed to read the content just as a viewer on your site would do.” There you have it; content is still king in SEO, reputation management, and digital inbound marketing more broadly.