Is SEO in 2019 a cargo cult? Or, after all, is it worth keeping an experienced SEO specialist in your company?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Hello!
Question for experienced people. Do you really need an SEO specialist in 2019, or will the site easily reach the top with normal technical optimization of the site and content?

Answer 1

Is SEO in 2019 a cargo cult?

Yes.
Yes. Paradox? No. He does a lot of things in parallel, useful for the site.

Answer 2

Here are a few theses:
1. One SEO specialist, as a unit, is very limited on the project, if there is no support from the designer (not a popuas who draws rectangles, but a designer), an editor (or a person who understands WELL in a niche), a seller of this product / service and, if necessary, a programmer. To put it simply: it will do its job, why the hell is it needed, if everything is through and the conversion is initially cut by a crooked assembly / design and poor text. Drive traffic to an unready resource.
2. Rustam Bainazarov gives an example with a SEO specialist and a successful case: he came, increased traffic, sales grew. Here we should add this: many look at the visible result. For example, a SEO specialist came, there was 100 traffic, it became 300. Sales were for 1 thousand rubles, it became 3 thousand. There is a result, but such work is in some sense not effective. I explain: for example, this specialist did it in six months. But how exactly did he do it? Did he work in conjunction with the specialists listed above in paragraph 1? If not, then the result of such work is mediocre, because for the same six months it was possible to make another conditionally 10 thousand potential profits.
3.

or will the site easily reach the top with normal technical optimization of the site and content?

Here you should understand this: technical optimization when the other levels of the ladder have been worked out. Today's SEO looks like trying to make a sofa out of a stool by sanding it down and pinning new parts to it. This is due to a misunderstanding of tactics, strategies and incorrect calculation of work. And we need to discuss not math-X, not design, not page loading speed and not CMS, but business processes, possible advertising channels, and useful action
4. Ronald McDonaldpointed out that in hiring an SEO specialist does not only SEO. It's true. But let's clarify a couple of details: an SEO expert is, first of all, a good analyst. He is not required to know web programming in depth. And let's no longer consider a SEO specialist as a directologist. Although he can easily conduct advertising campaigns, he will certainly have less expertise than people who deal only with contextual advertising.
And of course the size of the site matters. It's one thing, a SEO specialist for a site with a hundred pages, another thing is 30,000 of them. Therefore, it is also nonsense that a pure SEO specialist has died. On a large project, the SEO will ONLY do SEO every day, every month, under the guidance of a more experienced SEO. It is necessary to consider situations in particular. Depending on the tasks and volume, you can choose: look for a studio or hire a staff.
Personally, I'm for the resource method.
When a specialist reaches a level where he sees trends in the market, he no longer has anything to work for hire. He either launches his sites, going into web mastering, or opens his own business that is not related to web development and promotion: imagine what an advantage such a person has on the web over competitive business owners in a niche. There are of course nuances, with intelligence, flair, commercial streak, and so on. But in the end, such a SEO specialist comes to his business with a good background.
This is enchanting nonsense, like similar comments about SEO. It hasn't gone anywhere, it hasn't died out anywhere. Yes, there are more new channels for promotion, yes, the traffic has dispersed to different sites. But the fact remains: still a huge layer of people get to goods and services through organic search in a huge number of niches.
5. And the most important point. It so happened that there is a misunderstanding among employees: the boss, who is the wife of the founder, is arrogant and mediocre, putting pressure on the same SEOs, discouraging the desire to give all the best; Marketing girls who decided to play marketing; Room freaks designers and pseudo-editors; Weak and lazy sellers who are not interested in what they are selling; CSW leadership still thinking it's up to whoever pays. And so on and so on and so on.
All this evil spirits will never and never be able to get along with free, thinking and willing to do their work with high-quality specialists. And when such a specialist (well, let's imagine that this is the same SEO specialist) gets into such an environment, he quickly ceases to be effective: the work is maintained at the "permissible value" level. And if such a specialist asks to attract more specialists, will they not send him? What if they send? And if the management is useless to explain? Is it true to say that SEO died because, for example, the SEO was not allowed to do his job well?
This is what I mean by looking at the situation on a larger scale. And not at the level of stupid hype in the style of "yyyy two ka 19, seo is die".
I described some thoughts here:
How to choose an SEO company?
Is it true that any website starts with a semantic core?

Answer 3

There is a channel in the cart from a product manager: https://t.me/betternotworse
there was a post about SEO:

Answer 4

SEO started dying in 2010. At the end of 2019, this is a cargo cult.

Answer 5

What?!?!! 70 hours per client per month! He pays only 6 hours of SEO per month! Do what you can (situation from current projects)

Answer 6

And where does the cargo cult come from? You don’t buy advertising on TV.
Exhaust from SEO is easily considered the last penny.
If your competitors do less than you do for SEO, then you will be in the top1 anyway, and if they do it again, you will never be top