Is SEO Bull…Well, You Know?

If you look up “Is SEO legit?” (or something more explicit), you’re going to get quite a lot of hot-button search results that argue one way or the other, and probably the majority are going to argue in favor of the position that SEO is a big load of – well, again, you know. 

I’m not entirely sure I sympathize with that mindset (not just because I consider myself an accomplished SEO expert [ahem]), although I do truly sympathize with the frustration of those making the claim. 

So, not to equivocate, but depending on your perspective, you could make a compelling case that SEO is a legitimate digital marketing channel, or that it is all complete nonsense. Allow an explanation. 

A Compelling Argument that SEO Is a Steaming Pile 

The search results are full of posts and forum threads about how SEO ruined the internet. In some sense, they are right. 

Digital “marketers” that have learned how to game the system have cluttered the tops of the search results with a lot of thin nonsense that actually makes it harder than ever to find the answer to a pretty basic question. 

Worst of all are the charlatans that use generative AI to drum up thousands upon thousands of words of utter nonsense, verging on blatantly, nearly unethically inaccurate information, optimizing the structure and keyword density to get to the tops of the search results. 

Fortunately, these posts and pages don’t usually last more than a few days, weeks, tops, but their low quality and the disturbingly high frequency of patently false information makes one’s position as a genuine truth-seeker quite tenuous. 

Then there is the slightly different position of those that call SEO more or less a huckster’s digital marketing channel. These argue that knowing how to adjust page titles, a little bit of copy, and make some basic site structure changes in order to boost a domain’s ranking in the search results does not constitute true digital marketing expertise on behalf of the practitioner. 

I’m slightly ambivalent on the matter. On the one hand, if you know how to do it and it gets results, does it really matter that it’s basic? Half the population of this country probably pays $50 dollars at the mechanic to get their wiper blades replaced despite the fact that anyone can do that without tools for pennies. 

To be fair, insomuch as SEO has “ruined” the quality of the search results, it doesn’t really mean that Google is broken. In fact, it should make us sharper, not duller. It requires a thinking mind to sift through the results, and cross-reference them, in order to find the information desired. Does that make life harder? Sure, but nothing worth having comes easy, and what more precious resource is there than knowledge?

Anyway, at the end of the day, is it frustrating to see others in this industry prop themselves up as thought leaders when what they’re doing is absurdly basic? A little bit, yes. But perhaps my willingness to admit that this is not rocket science has been what kept me from outrightly declaring that SEO is bull…caught myself again. 

You get the picture. The truth is, while there are 200 or more ranking signals that impact a website’s rankings, most of these have very little impact on the overall picture. The big ones, in no particular order, are domain age, on-site factors, specifically page titles, backlinks (from quality domains), and content, which I’d argue is the most important one of all.

To reduce this as much as possible; marketers that game the system and clutter the search results with garbage have definitely reduced the overall search experience, and I recognize that. However, I don’t believe that this warrants an utter dismissal of SEO as witchcraft. Rather, I think it’s important to understand what it means to do SEO the “right” way. 

The Counterpoint 

I personally think that the main reason SEO is not an utter, contemptible mess has to do with the fact that, when one genuinely makes a concerted, honest effort to practice white hat techniques, none of the previously mentioned negative externalities materialize. 

As I have stated in my previous publications, SEO is evolving such that the main pillar, content, is indicative of content marketing, not of drivel penned solely for the purpose of meeting a word count and getting a bunch of keywords to appear on a page. 

Do I still utilize keyword research tools and SEO best practices as a copywriter? Absolutely, but I have also expressly disavowed the sentiment that it is these best practices that get results. Quality of copy comes first, SEO techniques come second. 

The evolution of SEO copywriting into content marketing means that what’s published should be published first for consumption by readers and only secondarily for consumption by search engines. The quality of the information you publish simply must be valuable to readers. This is why you can still find 10, even 15 year old posts ranking at the top of page one. 

To make this as simple as possible, it’s fair to call bull on SEO if you’re talking about what most digital marketers talk about – making basic optimizations and blowing them out of proportion. No domain ever got to page one – ever – by changing a few URLs and adjusting the structure of internal links. 

The vast majority of these optimizations are simple and only when made on an ongoing basis, cumulatively, en masse, will have an appreciable impact on search engine rankings. It’s likely true that some so-called SEO experts (present company excluded) oversell the significance, and the impact, of what they services they offer actually entail. 

Moreover, there are ranking signals that SEO experts can’t do anything about. For instance, domain name and age are two fixed ranking signals that marketers can’t change. An older domain with the keyword in the name is almost always going to outrank a younger competitor for that same keyword. 

Furthermore, if you consider the impact of high-quality copy – really high quality copy, that doesn’t just try to meet a word count, and which answers questions with helpful, even original, unique information – then SEO is definitely not garbage. Although, to be fair, I just described content marketing, didn’t I? That was sort of my whole point from the start. 

The Long and Short of It 

SEO is not as complex as some digital marketers would have you believe. You can implement almost any optimization on your own if you have good target keywords. It just takes a long time. 

In this way, there is some merit to the persistent gripes that some in the industry have. To them, SEO is – again, you know. 

But, when implemented properly, using white hat techniques, and pursuing SEO more as a facet of content marketing, it yields a high-quality user experience and is definitely not nonsense.

That’s about as concise as I can make this whole affair.