THE future of website promotion is set to change immeasurably over the coming years, according to a Trafford Park digital agency.

At an event co-hosted with Google, Daniel Nolan, managing director of theEword, argued that search engine optimisation (SEO) in its original form has decreasing influence in the digital sphere, set to be eclipsed by clever content marketing, fully integrated digital campaigns and supplemented by paid-for advertising.

“The meaning of SEO has changed,” said Daniel. “There has been a marked shift from old school SEO, which was all about linkbuilding, to new-generation SEO which combines a range of digital marketing disciplines to deliver results.

“Years ago, it was enough to simply have a website that was linked to from many other websites; allowing any old site that was deemed to be well-connected to appear in search results.

"Then, search engines started placing more emphasis on quality results. Linkbuilding became less important and eventually, almost completely redundant unless it was done exceptionally well.

“For the past few years, it’s been about the quality and relevance of the content on the page. This is still important, but we’ll start to see it be supplemented with other elements, such as personalisation, impeccably clever content marketing and lots of engagement through video. The old school SEO campaign is dead and has no place on a digital marketing strategy in 2015.”

The event – Discover and Demystify Digital – aimed to shine a light on successful digital marketing for small businesses by providing an insight into how to secure top page ranking scores, increase traffic and boost conversions. Topics of discussion included mythbusting, content management, the customer journey and how to run a fully integrated digital campaign, as well as advice on the benefits of working with certified Google Partner agencies.