Ever since marketers have discovered that online marketing was more cost-efficient and effective than print advertising, there have been loads of methods developed to maximize exposure and sales online. Before Google had its latest Panda and Penguin updates, SEO was the way to go. Businesses started abusing this practice by having poorly written content, unrelated keywords and too many keywords.
Thus came the birth of inbound marketing. Not only is inbound marketing shown to be more effective than SEO, but it also has a higher ROI than SEO, which is what most businesses strive to achieve with online marketing.