Bo Henriksens’s Weblog

For those finding the title of this post a little cryptic i recommend reading the Wikipedia articles Operators in C and C++ and Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

In the time I have worked with SEO, most of the sales pitches I have heard regarding SEO and SEM, from our own sales staff, partners and competitors, has concluded that “If you wan’t your online business to succeed, all you need is SEO/SEM, and your ROI will skyrocket!”. I know and accept that salesmen tend to glorify the product, and will do almost anything to sell it. I know they will make it look like you doen’t need anything but SEO/SEM and you will be fine. But I disagree.

While I’m not a business genius, my understanding is that keeping a client happy means keeping a client, and it takes less effort to keep a client, than to gain a new client. Assuming that my simple business understanding is correct, I have fougth for a more holistic approach, where SEO is an important part of the foundation for online success, but not the one true answer.

My view on things is that SEO/SEM should go hand in hand with usability, design and market analysis. Having the best, most userfriendly website in the world won’t do anything good, if nobody can find it. Having lots of search engine top rankings won’t do anything good if people exit your website as soon as they get there, because it is ugly or userhostile. Even the best website with great rankings won’t do anything good for your business, if users can’t relate the website to the search they just did, so this is where market analysis comes in.

The market analyst in cooperation with the SEO/SEM can help tailor content and searchphrases to match your products and services, so that rankings on the rigth words will lead to qualified traffic. The market analyst together with the usablity and design teams will be able to apply a model like AIDA to make sure the relevant traffic has easy access to your conversion points, so you can earn your profits.

Summed up, when done rigth, visibility will lead to traffic which leads to conversions.