SEO in 2016, things changed from when I started my career back in 2004

Its been 12 years working in SEO Marketing industry and things has changed a lot since then. Initial 6-7 years were very easy (in terms of getting a website ranked in search engines), those where the years when I was open for any SEO challenge and have achieved first pages (sometimes number 1) rankings for many keywords that today a SEO guy might not even think of ranking in the dreams. During those time good on-page SEO, content and some quick links from any kinds of website would help. Also there were very few SEO companies around that time so that was also main reason why ranking a website was easier. In 2004 there were around 2-3 good SEO companies in Chandigarh and today you can see there are a couple of SEO companies in every sector and if I take SEO freelancers, work from home SEO guys, then this number could easily rist to around 300 or more.

SEO was fund those times, and it gave immense pleasure checking website rankings those times. Here are few of the keywords that I achieved top ranking during those times:

1. GED
2. GED Online
3. Football
4. UK football
5. Viagra
6. Buy Viagra
7. Weight Loss Pills
8. Logo Creator
9. PDF converter
10. Web Design Company
11. Paid Surveys
12. There were lot more but these are what I can recall at this moment. Will need to take a look at my resume to update more keywords here :)

 In the current year of 2016, when I think on SEO industry, it has changed a lot. Thanks to the spammer who  would do anything to get a website ranked and the google search spam team headed by Matt Cutts. The google search algorithm is more and more focused on quality of results and hitting hard on the spam websites. Anyone who violates copyrights, participates in link schemes or used a thin quality content is least likely to rank in the search engines results and chances of a penalty are there as well.

So what a webmaster can do to rank a website in search engines these days.

Here is the list that what a webmaster can do really in 2016 to achieve top rankings in search engines:

• Build a great website of value to user
• Add great quality content
• Wait
• Wait
• Wait 
• A grade on-page SEO work for all the pages
• Improve page load speed
• No copyright violations
• Wait 
• Wait
• Wait
• Keep a close eye on google and bing webmaster tools reports
• Get citation links
• NAP mentions
• Active presence at social networks
• Listing at google maps 
• Listing at top local listing websites and sponsored listing if possible
• Wait 
• Wait
• Wait
• PPC marketing campaign when business is in peak 
• Video Promotions
• Blog Promotions
• Get articles published in local newspapers, most newspapers are on web also so good exposure. 
• No hanky panky with paid or low quality links
• Get reviews, testimonials