I had the pleasure of dining with my good friend, Mike Grehan, just before Easter. We chatted about the topic of his upcoming article – Does Textbook SEO Really Work Anymore?

Mike’s article suggests that a lot of the old-school SEO tactics are no longer important.

As far as my own experience goes, links and end-user behavior are the important, upwardly mobile components for decent ranking. So that’s where I’d rather focus my own time and attention.

My thoughts? There’s enough evidence to support Mike’s theory – if you have a great site with quality inbound links, you can be #1 on Google without changing any “content” (as proved by “miserable failure“). I’ve also seen enough evidence that proves a site can languish outside of the Top 50 then rocket to #1 with some changes to on-page content and no changes to links (although, changing a keyword in the meta-tag is not going to be enough).

I think many sites still need a balanced approach to SEO, but there are a whole host of tactics that are no longer worth the effort.

What are your thoughts? Mike wants to hear from you.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.