Less Can Be More

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), sometimes it’s important to focus on the fundamentals. Let’s start with the basics:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. – MOZ

This is an ideal definition of SEO because it focuses on both quantity and quality. While quantity is great, quality should be your touchstone. Yes, the goal of SEO is increased traffic, but you’re not after just any traffic. Yet, unsurprisingly, this is typically the biggest misunderstanding encountered in the field of search.

Search engine optimizers are often seen as the spammy bad guys that want to ruin your beautiful website with keyword after keyword and bad, fluffy content just to get more visits. That may have been at least partially true in the past, but it is not true now, or shouldn’t be, and it definitely is not at Upward Brand Interactions.

SEO at Upward takes into consideration both quantity and quality, but primarily as they relate to leads. We do this because we see the point of SEO as being a strategy to increase business. To increase a client’s business, we work to help our clients optimize their websites for what they do. For example, does the site clearly state what the company does? Does it list all services/products? Most importantly, does it speak to potential customers? It all seems basic, but you’d be surprised how many businesses have websites that don’t meet those criteria.

As search marketers, what we don’t want are increased visits from people who are not interested in our clients’ products or services. Those visits are worth very little, if anything. Instead, we want visits from people who are highly interested in buying our clients’ specific services or products. Initially, this could result in a traffic decline. But think about it this way –would you rather have 10 out of 100 visitors to your site buy your products, or take 20 sales (a 100 percent increase) in exchange for just 50 visitors (a 50 percent drop)?

By better optimizing a site for visitors that we do want we can cut down on uninterested or mismatched traffic. Whether this traffic is mismatched because these visitors are looking for slightly different services, or perhaps because they are not a good fit geographically, helping search engines better understand the site will reduce these types of visits. By focusing on the right audience, we can cut down on these non-converting visits.

If you still think of SEO as a means to get more traffic, I encourage you to take a step back and look at the big picture. More visits do not equal more business. In fact, sometimes less is more.