The SEO Game: Undying Principles and Enduring Strategies

What won’t change in 10 years?

I recently watched an old interview of Jeff Bezos in which he said

“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.

It was a brilliant reframe. Across industries, we are so transfixed on all the changes that are happening we lose sight of the core principles that will still hold true.

Everyday there’s countless articles about SEO regarding algorithm updates, new optimization techniques and technologies etc.

But the reality is that the core of what the SEO game is hasn’t changed in the over 20 years I’ve been involved in it.

It’s just a Question and Answer game. Work out ways to find out what the questions are people are asking through search engines and what their intent is behind it. Once you get that you just provide them with an Answer to that question.

That’s why the more unique targeted content you have, the more questions you can answer, the more rankings you get which drives more traffic. It’s as simple as that and hasn’t changed, nor will it change.

The trick is how to do it at a scale that makes your competitors irrelevant 😉

Reflecting back on Bezos’ insights it underscores the importance of studying history to grasp the enduring fundamentals of people, markets and societies that are unlikely to change.

This is why Confucius said:

“Study the Past if you would Define the Future.”

Discriminate between what is timeless vs transient.