What is SEO 2? You may not even know what SEO is yet! I don’t blame you!

Yet here we are talking about the next level of SEO – or as I refer to it SEO 2!

How do SEO and SEO 2 differ actually? Do they at all? Yes, they do!

How does modern SEO differ from old school SEO?

These are the 15 most important differences between SEO and SEO 2!

In other words this is old school and modern SEO or Search Engine Optimization compared.

Yes, SEO has been around since at least 1997 when Adam Audette coined the term. That’s 25+ years!

SEO	SEO 2
Link building as in manually adding them by submitting static websites to directories, link exchange, paying for links	attracting links organically by blogging, outstanding content, establishing relationships
Optimization for search engines. Example: repetitive page titles focusing solely on keywords	Optimization for people. Example: enticing post headlines
Competition: you compete with others to be #1 in Google	Cooperation: you cooperate with each other sharing fellow bloggers’ posts on social media, you link out to them
Barter: you give me a link and only then I will give you one	Giving: I link you regardless whether you link back, but in many cases you will, more than once
Hiding: we’re not practicing SEO, we can’t show our client list publicly, generic SEO company, NDA	Being open: Welcome our new client, we are proud to work together with them, Rand Fishkin, Brian Dean, see the case study
keywords	topics
optimization for links, rankings and traffic	optimization for visitors and engagement of real people
clicks, page views, visits	conversions, ROI, branding, customer retention
self-promotion	popularization
Main traffic sources: Google, Yahoo, MSN	Main platforms: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, communities, blogs, direct traffic
one way communication	dialog, conversation
top down, corporations and old media decide what succeeds	bottom up, wisdom of crowds determines true popularity via participation
undemocratic, who pays most is on top	democratic, who responds to popular demand succeeds
50% automated, half of the SEO tasks can be done by SEO software	10% automated, most SEO 2 tasks are about helpful content and interaction
technocratic (as in measuring traffic)	emotional (as in nourishing brand evangelists)

So here are the changes that took place during the last quarter of a century.

Some of them started out as predictions. Now they are common sense!

Still not sure what SEO or SEO 2 means?

Please also check out these 11 SEO 2 examples from all over the Web.

Also please take a look at my POPULAR framework alias the 7 pillars of SEO 2!

You don’t recognize the “SEO 2” moniker? No problem.

Most people nowadays refer to it as “social SEO” or simply SEO.

Yet the new type of SEO I cherish and preach here since 2007 is different!

At the end of the day modern social SEO is often about

• Sharing
• Engagement
• Outreach

in case you still wonder.