If there’s anything which is constant in the world of digital marketing, it’s change.  Change is inevitable as technology continues to evolve at a faster than ever pace.  As we embark on the AI revolution and the pace of change continues to accelerate, the very way we search for information, products and services will also transform.   
Look no further than Google rolling out their very first search engine 25 years ago, predictive search 20 years ago, voice search 10 years ago, and AI search this year.  Search technology has exponentially changed in just a quarter of a century and continues to do so at a pace faster than ever. 
Less than a decade after Google launched their first search engine, Simple SEO Group, one of the nation’s oldest search engine optimization (SEO) agencies was born.  Now celebrating over 15 years in business as a leading SEO agency having worked with nearly 500 clients, as their name suggests, the agency continues to keep things simple and engage in SEO practices that simply work and get unworldly results for their clients. 
The Past of SEO 
As Google celebrates this week 25 years since launching, since inception there have been tens of thousands of updates to their algorithm for ranking websites.  However, only a few of these updates really have had enough major change to dramatically change a company’s organic SEO strategy.   
Initially, backlinks or one website linking to another, was the main and only driver of SEO rankings.  As smart SEO gurus gamed the system and added spam links, white links on white backgrounds, and other shady tactics, Google had to evolve and become smarter.  Google incorporated on-site signals, one by one, into their algorithm. As time went on, there are now over 200+ on-site elements that go into SEO. Eventually, Google integrated content into the algorithm, which was quickly manipulated and turned into Google eventually requiring unique and authoritative content.   
While we could go on and on over the various changes in the algorithm, there’s one common thread.  Quality eventually always trumps quantity and a humanistic touch always trumps computer generated SEO work.  While this has held true for the past 25 years, today as we enter the age of AI, Google is faced with a new challenge – how to prevent search results from becoming a battle of which company can deploy more, smarter AI to outrank their competitors. 
The Future of SEO & AI’s Role 
What’s passed has passed, and most businesses are only concerned with looking ahead to the future.  How can they continue to gain market share and grow revenue with their digital marketing and SEO strategy as we embark on the AI era of SEO? 
Brendan Egan, founder and CEO of Simple SEO Group, says his agency is one of the very few who have the answer.  “We’ve leveraged AI in our agency, not to perform client work as that is a surefire way to a penalty and lower rankings on Google, but to actually calculate what Google wants us to be doing and what signals are most important on a client-by-client basis,” said Egan.   
“We’ve created an AI driven algorithm that actually helps us understand where a client is lacking, and can deploy our internal human resources to focus on those areas.  Whether it be a certain type of link, a piece of on-site optimization, or even a special signal we can send to Google to drive interest in a specific website.  AI has helped us identify elements of SEO which Google is looking for that we have never even heard other SEO agencies publicly talk about, probably because they haven’t cracked the code yet,” added Egan.   
While he would not divulge specifics on what some of the ranking signals they have cracked, stating they are akin to a trade secret that gives his agency a competitive advantage, Egan did share with us the results of this strategy. 
“We have a 98% client retention rate even though our agency operates on month-to-month client contracts, have ranked 100% of our clients on page 1 of Google, and we are one of the very few agencies that in addition to a standard retainer pricing model also offers a pay-for-performance model where we only get paid when we get you ranked.  That’s how confident we are in this strategy actually working.”  
Where SEO Goes From Here 
While AI continues to evolve at the fastest pace we have ever seen in the technological revolution, it’s uncertain what the specifics of the future of SEO will hold, but according to Egan one thing is clear – SEO will not anytime soon turn into a battle of “robot versus robot.”  He says a humanistic touch will be required for at least the next 5 to 10 years, which is good news not just for his agency but for the clients he works to rank #1.   
“SEO will undoubtedly undergo more change in the next 10 years than it has in the past 25 combined, but for the immediate future, what has held true in the past will continue to hold true – quality, human work outperforms high quantity, machine driven work in the SEO realm, and we have the proof to show it in the SEO results we continue to achieve for our clients,” concluded Egan.   

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