Hello Everyone, Greetings for the day! I have been an old school, that's what my title suggests..lol I began my career here at DP in 2009, I was stuck with *all* old folks here, blogs, Books for SEO. I was involved and gained a lot of knowledge until 2012. Thank you guys I switched to a physical business in 2013, and now in 2025, it went all loss (long story). I want to switch back to SEO, but now they call it Digital Marketing. This forum has also a different story, I know, but old folks still don't mind visiting every now and then, and some might still be in this business. Can you please guide me on what areas I should focus on, and how I can relate myself to Digital Marketing? What vision should I have to understand, so call, CHANGE, from then to now. Areas to learn and improve, please. I am also untouched with lead-generation through SMO. Bottom line, how can I beat new chaps in town. Goal is LEADS, after all. Make sure to reply on my comments, If i add more questions...who has so much time left, btw. I sincerely invite old folks to help me guide, with my utmost respect to old wines. Thank you for your great admiration for reading till here. Manish
Old guy here! Started almost 20 years when SEO was as easy as just stuffing keywords and telling Google what your site was about. I could easily dominate the SERP back then. Now it's all about digital marketing, AI searches, GEO, AIO, AEO, etc....whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. However, the basic fundamental principles are still the same....good content, good navigation, user friendly, fast loading times, etc. Make your site a good user experience for visitors and you're on the right track. The main new things to be aware of are using schema markup and having content written in a conversational tone for AI searches and voice searches, as most people will search in the form of a question. It's not just about dropping keywords in your content anymore.
Back in 2009–2012, SEO was about keyword stuffing, blog commenting, and link wheels—tactics that could game Google’s simpler algorithms (pre-Panda/Penguin). Now, Google’s a beast with AI-driven updates (RankBrain, BERT, MUM, and 2024’s Helpful Content Update), prioritizing user intent, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), and engagement signals. Digital marketing now encompasses SEO, SMO, content marketing, paid ads, and analytics, all working together to drive leads.
Regardless of channel make sure you build a email list so if Google nukes you then you have an asset you own. Same old really. Traffic source (Google, YouTube, social,) -> email list.
Learn SEO, AEO, Google and Facebook ads and you're good to go with multiple earning revenue streams for your business, or any other businesses you get involved in. Btw you can learn for free from YouTube but I'd advise not to do it and get structured courses from Udemy on these subjects as you will learn faster and avoid common mistakes such us posting pure AI shit etc.
Manish, I think the biggest advantage you have is that you already understand the old SEO mindset. A lot of new people entering digital marketing only know tools and tactics, but they don’t understand the basics of why people search and what makes a website convert. The biggest change I noticed is that SEO is no longer a standalone thing. Today I would focus on understanding the full journey: how people discover a business, what makes them trust it, and what turns traffic into leads. Learn modern SEO, content strategy, analytics, paid ads basics, email marketing, and social media lead generation. Don’t try to compete with younger marketers by chasing every new trend. Use your experience. A person who understands business, customers, and sales can often beat someone who only knows how to publish AI-generated articles. Start with one niche, build a few real projects, track results, and slowly expand. The fundamentals are still valuable; the way we apply them has just changed.
You are right Mark, As the SEO is changing now days, Now people prefer to do search on AI tools like Chatgpt, Perplexity, Claude etc. instead of the search engine. Evening People ask mostly thing to Google AI mode. So here Manish need to take advantage of his experience and use the AI tools like grovixmedia.com, SEMrush AI Features to build a proper strategies no need to compete with younger marketers just use mix his experience with AI tools. Don't waste time on do manual thing, take the advantage of AI tools.