This question can lead to quite an emotive debate between web professionals. As a web designer one of the most common questions that clients ask me is “Will I be ranked highly in Google”. Each time I’m asked this I generally give the same answer, and that is to not be too focussed on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) at the expense of other marketing practices. So, to a degree my answer to the question of this post has to be ‘Yes – I do think that SEO can be overrated’.
It’s estimated that there are around 3 billion web pages on the World Wide Web at the moment, and there are more being added every minute of every day. This means that each day the target of being listed on the first page of Google becomes more and more difficult. Even if you do manage to get that elusive listing, is it for a relevant keyword?
A great example of this is elmnet’s Google number one for the phrase ‘Is size really that important?’. This result comes top of the pile out of a few hundred million results so on paper sounds fantastic, but in reality it’s really quite useless. People searching using this phrase are incredibly unlikely to be searching for a blog article about the sensor size in digital cameras, and so our web page will be closed within a few seconds as the user goes back to the search results.
This doesn’t mean that I think that SEO is a waste of time. It clearly isn’t, and having a website which ranks highly for relevant keywords can be hugely beneficial. What we must be careful of is that we don’t see SEO as a magical answer to all our marketing questions because it’s not. Any business that relies solely on this is in trouble. Search results can vary according to location, previous behaviour, whether you are signed in or out of Google, which datacenter you hit, algorithm tweaks that happen every week and more, so are never as predictable or consistent as you may at first think.
A web marketing campaign needs to be robust and should be carried out using a variety of methods. Building a database of contacts and sending regular email newsletters should be considered, along with social networking applications such as twitter and facebook. In addition blogs can be used to attract inbound links and then there is the time honoured tradition of flyers, brochures, stationery and business cards. A well designed site, written in a standards compliant way with good content should be the final piece of the jigsaw, and is where all other marketing activities will feed in to. And we haven’t even mentioned SEO yet!
Include as much of this in your marketing plan as you can and everything should just fall into place, and the overall effectiveness will be far greater than if the bulk of your time is spent worrying about keywords and where you are in Google.
I spoke with a highly respected authority on all things web not so long ago, and he still insists to this day that for most smaller businesses simply having your web address on every email, letter, invoice, business card, quotation and estimate is just as effective a marketing tool as ranking well in search engines.
We’ve obviously had this conversation a few times over the past couple of years. Having looked at the way my business works and performs I would be in complete agreement that SEO is overrated, at least in terms of what I do.
If you type my name into google then it’s number one and listed in most of the sites on the first and second pages. But the thing is that it’s specific, people already know who I am, therefore they are actively seeking out my website. It’s those keywords that have brought them directly to my site. I agree completely that a website is a tool in a bigger marketing campaign, it’s a fabulous way of showcasing what you do, getting out immediate information etc, but if it’s not backed up with other methods, it’s just one in millions and the likelyhood of attracting work from that alone is minimal.
Even in this digital world people still like to be given a physical business card, a good well written letter, a compliment slip, and best of all, a personal recommendation. The next one is Keywords, useful again if people know you, but not the be all and end all. For example, GoogleAds, I have an advert out at the moment, which is generating traffic to my website, which is great, it’s doing it’s job in that it is helping to spread awareness, but it is still the people who I make contact with myself then point to my site that give me business. Is this just the nature of what I do, or a recurrent factor?….
Interesting post, John. As with most things in life I guess it comes down to moderation – e.g. focus on covering the bases and SEO will deliver for you alongside your other marketing / awareness activities. The trick is getting the effort/reward ratio correct.
Absolutely, that sums up nicely the point I was trying to make. You can spend a lot of time and money on SEO which could be far more effectively used elsewhere in your campaign! And traffic to a site isn’t necessarily any good if it doesn’t convert. Personally I would rather have a warm introduction than a Google number 1 any day of the week!
Having the web address on all stationery does help, but I’d argue that it doesn’t generate new business, which is the point of most SEO; using blogs to attract inbound links (mentioned in your post) is SEO.
I think you hit the nail on the head with ‘don’t see SEO as a magical answer to all our marketing questions’; it can be a primary portion of it, but you should never put all of your eggs in one basket!
Yup, very valid point there Richard regarding the ‘address on stationery’ question. I suppose it all depends on exactly where your stationery / business cards etc end up!
Thanks for your comments.