How’s that for an advice coming from a guy who eats, sleeps and breathes Search Engine Optimization? If the truth be told, I should be aiming to convince people that SEO is the holy grail of internet success rather than repelling them. Just to make it clear, I am in full senses and not in a mood to shoot myself in the foot.
So when I say, don’t get infatuated with search engine optimization and rankings, I m primarily addressing the online business owners and not SEO professionals (yes, it’s alright to be fanatical about search engines, back links, rankings and the likes, if you are an SEO professional, even though a multi-talented SEO is still better than a mere link developer).
Nevertheless, let’s take a look at how SEO syndrome can hurt your website in due course.
Listening more to some SEO nerd rather than listening to your customers:
First downside of getting fixated with this ranking stuff … you will start paying more attention to what SEO techies are saying instead of paying attention to your visitors. Now … SEO techies are not evil guys and their blogs are definitely not some no-go zones, neither are any of those websites talking about search engine algorithms, SEO guidelines or Google updates.
The problem actually transpires when you drive yourself into believing that your job starts and ends with improving the ranks. You know … all that hoopla about page impressions and unique visitors. Traffic, undoubtedly is the most needed sustenance for any website but it tends to be useless if the visitors are, just coming and going.
Therefore, do yourself and the visitors a favor, before you even try to get top rankings for a particular keyword. Make sure, your website has the information, product or services that the users will be looking for. Also, pay as much attention to user interface and the usability of your website, as you are paying to those on-page optimization checklists.
Wasting time in things that hardly matter:
At the end of the day … search engine optimization is all-about having great content and a steady growth in back links coming from relevant and trustworthy pages. Instead of keeping it simple (read: Occam’s razor principle) the obsession may lead you to a position where small things will start nagging, especially if you are not patient enough.
The problem with is that it takes some time before you can rank for anything noteworthy. Even if you were right on the mark from the word “Go”. Because the rankings won’t come overnight, the frustration may dupe you into thinking that something is wrong with your website. As a result you will start wasting too much time into research, tweaks and fixes that hardly matter.
Spending all the time and resources on optimization and not on conversion:
If you were asked to pick between two websites … one that gets 1000 daily visitors and manage to convert 1 out of these 1000 into a customer/subscriber, whereas the other one keeps getting 10,000 visitors and still fails to persuade any of them into purchasing … which one would you prefer? Clearly, the one that’s getting less traffic but more sales is the winner.
Yet, we see internet marketers, and even worse the business owners getting more concerned about “More” traffic and “Higher” rankings as compared to what they are making out of the visitors, they’ve already had. Search engine optimization alone is not going to cut it for you. Internet business profitability is measured by the number of sales and not rankings, which brings us back to the long-winded point of this article i.e. “getting overly obsessed with the rankings will kill your online business”
Good points.
One question that should (almost) always be asked before taking an action is:
Would you do this if there were no Search Engines?
If the answaer is 'no', a DEEP analysis is definitely needed.
A full–service, interactive marketing agency delivering measurable ROI-focused results for our clients through search engine optimization (SEO).
Listening to your customers and providing good content is definitely very important. Since search engines are the main tools used by people to find your content, having your pages optimized is helpful, but as mentioned in this article it should not be the main focus.
Great article…also optimization can trigger all sort of flags with Google and not give you the result you may need.
very well said… some SEO's are just concerned with the rankings and there are only a handful who cares about the conversion rate. but industry trends has been changed now and being an SEO you must take responsibility of traffic conversion not just aimless traffic.
Yes good thinking
Great article…
we must focus on ROI and not just SEO
Thanks
Rankings and lots of traffic means nothing if you are not converting them into customers.
Nice article. Conversion rate is the important thing.
This is a particularly relevant commentary right now – business owners are either obsessed or freaked out by all the buzz surrounding SEO. Ultimately, most business owners don't really know what it means. They simply think, “Free traffic!”
If only it were that easy!!!
powerful read. Its easy for a lot of businesses to get caught up in the resources out there, while failing to focus in keeping their relevant content and who their trying to attract in mind. this is definitely a recommended read.
It really depends on your business model ! if we are talking about online business, than if you don't rank high (1 or 2 page on “Go”) death (for the business!!) is the only exit. It doesn't matter that you sell the best good ever existed. If you are doing business on the high street, SEO could help for growth but low ranking wouldn't kill.
Your article is spot on … there must be a balance between SEO, website usability, and conversion. It's like asking the question, “which leg of a three-legged stool is most important?”
Right on. SEO is not about rankings and back links.
rankings don't buy your stuff – people do.
It's about good websites, usability, knowledge how people 'read' any webpage, site structure, layout, flows and so on.
All this combined leads to conversions.
SEO syndrome – A good one. the key, for me, is just to get your site to be as pr-visitors as possible. As you said: “you will start paying more attention to what SEO techies are saying instead of paying attention to your visitors”, that is all, nothing moew should be added
Really SEO is not about rankings and back links. SEO is the most cost-effective way to increase web traffic. Without doubt, it should be one of the priorities of your online business. However, if you are too focused in your SERP, you will definitely lose your position. Having a high SERP doesn't mean that the site would have good content.