Last week I wrote about Better marketing counts more than conventional SEO- Mike Grehan where Mike Grehan said that traditional SEO is dead.  I added my own ideas about SEO in the post (below):

"..I think Mike Grehan could have gone further and wrote a column on how searchers are evolving … it's not just the search engines …it's us.  We want more - we're sick lousy content, of marketing that does not work, of fake branding…we want immediate, real results that are relevant to us….. and not some cheap SEO Trick…with H1 tags, or whatever it takes to be on the first page of results - or be number one."

Well…Bryan Eisenberg has answered my question by extending what Mike Grehan is saying about SEO back to the Searcher in his ClickZ post End Searcher Optimization: The New SEO.  Bryan mentions an interesting observation - oftentimes, the Search Results, themselves, are better and more informative than the pages they link to (the Results).

In the "new Seo", you optimize based on the the preferences of your audience and forget about, more or less, the search engines.

"…

Here's an example of two end searchers shopping for their next smart phone:

• Tara Presenter. Tara's the classic competitive; she always wants to be a step ahead of her colleagues, clients, and friends. While she's not an early adopter (too many bugs), she's interested in owning something that functions better and smarter than the smart phone she has now. She wants people to be impressed when she sets it down on the conference room table. She wants a few features she can brag about and show off.

• Mike Value Shopper. Mike's the classic methodical buyer'; he wants value. He wants the most for his money and couldn't care less what others think. He wants reliability and practicality. Price is important. To make a decision, he needs an abundance of data and the ability to compare phones side by side.

Now that we know about these two end searchers, it's our job to present relevant content to them. On a universal search results page, they'll be attracted to two different things. Tara will be attracted to:

• Crisp, detailed images
• A 3-D view
• Articles and content referring to "best smart phones" and containing information relevant to her need to impress
• An executive summary of the smart phones she would consider
• Content referring to new features and benefits in smart phones

Mike, however, will be attracted to:

• Links to objective third-party reviews
• Customer reviews
• Comparison charts
• Available deals and offers
• Detailed spec sheets

My point was that people have evolved - it's not just the Search Engines that evolve and people need to see information in the way it's easiest for them to process and absorb - that's why it makes more sense to think about optimizing for the person who is reading your website over a search engine algorithm.