Is SEO still important?

I’m sure you’ve heard this question before.  And so you’re probably aware that for all intents and purposes – yes – SEO is important and it will continue to be a driver of revenue for the foreseeable future.

However, the point I’d like to make is that it will never be the best driver of revenues.

Here’s why

It doesn’t matter how many people visit your site if your sales argument doesn’t work.

Without credibility, a great track record, a superior value statement, guarantee and product – you’re not going to have much luck.

This is an essential point which, unfortunately, is often overlooked by people who have too much focus on the SEO process.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have a mountain of respect for the work that SEO specialists do.  And for many commercial products that essentially sell themselves with nice photography and a good price, more traffic means more revenue.

But that isn’t the case with products that are 1. Expensive, 2. Technical or 3. Subscription based.

For these, the sales argument is paramount.

When SEO gets in the way

I’ve seen it time and time again.  Key words get stuffed in here and there to please the search engines while readers are left wondering if the copy was written by a real person.

Here’s why that happens.

When an SEO experts takes a look at your website, they’ll often conclude that the more they can direct Google’s attention to well performing keywords throughout your site, the better.

This means that every page needs at certain amount of copy to pass the test.

And so, next, they’ll go to the copywriter with a requirement of 150 words with such and such keywords and this call to action to be repeated on every category page throughout the website.

I get it.  This might be the first page someone lands and so every page needs to shout out the company’s unique selling proposition.  It makes complete sense.  However, it’s not completely useful.

Here’s what I mean by that.

The first 7 seconds

The first thing people do when they land on a website isn’t to sit down and read the paragraph at the top of the page, it’s to scan for relevance and see if they’re in the right place.

If you want to get through to them in these critical first 7 seconds, then, you need to be as brief and to the point as possible.

Padding a paragraph with extra words just to please Google is going to kill your chances of doing that effectively.

Go to Apple’s website for a perfect example of the kind of instant communication that people expect these days.

But that’s Apple…

I know you might say, “But that’s Apple.  They don’t have to worry about getting web traffic.”

To which I say, “And that’s the point!”

They’ve developed quality products and that’s why they don’t have to worry about people finding them.

Quality trumps SEO.  And likewise, quality content will always be favored by Google; even as they release update after update to get rid of SEO engineered pages.

Brian Clark, CEO of copyblogger.com agrees.  According to him, “We never worried about what Google thought of us.  We just focused on putting out quality content.  But, as it turns out, because we were putting out quality content, Google liked us very much.”

So – yes – SEO will always be important.  But quality will always be more important.  Ideas that excite people will always generate more sales!  And well written content that people love to follow and share will always be a more effective way to grow your sales funnel.

Just ask Dove soap.  They don’t spend their time telling people or promoting themselves to Google as the best soap for washing your face.

Instead, they only care about putting forward their message.  “You are more beautiful than you think you are.”

This message is more important than anything else because that is an idea they can build their brand on.  And, as you’ll notice, that has nothing to do with SEO.