Is SEO Really Worth It?

14th December 2011

Search engine optimization has been a hot topic for a long time now with many website and business owners being lured by the potential to get lots of “free” and organic traffic from the search engines.

The problem, however, with many sites that have been “optimized” is that the design of the site is focused on pleasing the search engines. High-traffic keyphrases are “forced” into poorly written articles that exist only to try and drive more traffic to the site.

Site owners typically write articles and content based around keyphrases that have decent daily traffic and little competition – of course, there’s potential to get traffic from these phrases, but is it really worth it if it’s affecting the quality of your site?

It’s not uncommon to see articles where phrases that aren’t even grammatically correct (e.g. “best websites templates”) are included because the primary focus is to try and rank well for that particular phrase.

Whilst this might get you some additional traffic, it’s pointless if the quality of the content is not of a high standard. Are visitors really going to buy your products or hire your services if you have lots of “keyword-stuffed” articles on your site?

Designing and running a site for the search engines is completely the wrong focus! You should be designing for what your users want and need – not the other way round.

You’re in a dangerous position when you have a site where 90% of the traffic comes via the search engines. A subtle change in a search engine’s ranking algorithm could make your site disappear overnight.

Why not try a different approach? Instead of focusing on SEO, commit to writing high quality articles on a regular basis over a 12 month period.

Write with passion and engage your audience with articles and topics they’re interested in. Don’t even consider the keyphrases you’re looking to target – simply focus on producing great content.

You might not see traffic immediately, but soon people will start to notice – they’ll start to share your content because it’s interesting, entertaining, and useful. Word will spread and you’ll start to pick up authoritative backlinks and exposure.

As a result, you’ll start to get traffic from a number of different sources – not just the search engines. You’ll gain more credibility and enhance the chances that visitors will want to do business with you.

Taking this approach is certainly hard work and time consuming, but by focusing on producing quality content on a regular basis you’ll create a site that you, your users, AND the search engines will love.