People and Traffic Optimization (PTO) is NOT the end of SEO

By Stevie Sleeter, Content & Social Media Manager

Published: May 9, 2013

Things change in the world of search engines. Everyday, search algorithms, all of those cliche “best practices” and even your rankings fluctuate. If you’re not working on what’s coming tomorrow, you’re already behind.

So, with the recent rise in popularity of the phrase PTO or People and Traffic Optimization, it seems as though everyone from search experts to interactive strategists are set aflutter. Heralded in as the “new SEO,” many early adopters are arguing that search optimization as we know it is on its way out. Consider this blog headline on a post shared in the last few weeks: “Traditional SEO is literally dying and those that cling to the old methods are seeing their sites WIPED OUT in the masses!”

But before we ditch our linking strategies and dub our keyword visibility percentages as inaccurate, we must consider the facts and weigh the concepts behind SEO and PTO, which may just turn out more like brothers than evil step siblings. It’s not that SEO is dead or that links are obsolete, it’s that in 2014 there is a way to integrate all the technical pieces of traditional search engine optimization into the big picture of building a better company by building an online community around it.

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