SEO Prowess is a myth and why one should be wary of people claiming so!

“We should only focus to grow organically,” “Organic is the only way to grow,” “70% of our results should come from organic sources,” “I can grow your organic traffic by 50%,” “How will you achieve 1,00,000 organic leads in the next 2 month? ,” “I have helped grow my organic traffic and helped sales from the organic traffic from 5% to 86%,”and on and on.

How many of you have heard the above statements / Qs by your management, your peers, your interviewer, your interviewee, your manager …I am sure almost all of you, right?

Prevalence of such statements / Questions is not surprising, as the importance of organic growth in digital marketing is widely recognized. However, it is important to approach such assertions with a critical eye. While organic traffic can drive valuable leads and conversions, focusing solely on organic growth and exclusion of other marketing channels or tactics may not be feasible or effective for all businesses and may hinder overall growth potential. Organic growth is very difficult to achieve without significant spends in the paid media space (ATL/BTL/Digital/PR). You pick up any company today which has a high organic traffic, and you will notice a significant increase in media spends in the corresponding period.

Hence it will be safe to assume,

More Media Spends = More Organic Traffic , essentially media spends is directly proportional to organic traffic.

But then, someone might ask is this a linear equation and if so what about SEO? Does SEO play no part in driving organic traffic?

My answer to that would be while SEO does play a role, but by itself it cannot drive your organic growth, contrary to what many would claim. I have seen many a self-proclaimed, SEO gurus throw a lot of jargons just to intimidate or confuse people.

The on-page / off-page activity, the keyword research, the content that you put up, the technical activity for analytics and measurement, the silo structure built up, the algorithmic opacity that you put up , the Canonicalization, the htaccess, the robots.txt, the schema markup, the crawl budget, Semantic Indexing and more, that one would do as part of the SEO is just the hygiene that one should ensure, so that the webpages in your website STANDS to get crawled and indexed without ANY GUARANTEE of the ranking or Organic growth.

Let’s face it, SEO ACTIVITY AT BEST IS JUST A GUESTIMATE.

Does that mean one should neglect SEO efforts. Absolutely NOT. What I am trying to say here is, one should be realistic of what one is asking for and of what one is claiming. As the famous saying goes “Rome was not built in a day,” your organic traffic also will take time and sustained concentrated effort from all sides to grow, but what use is that when just 1 google update is enough to bring your ranking to the bottom. Therefore, not only must you be prepared for such a thing to happen but also make your webpage such that the chances of this is drastically decreased.

Responses to outrageous Qs like “how will you ensure that you get 2 lacs leads month on month from our website through organic means?” when the current leads are less than 300, should be dealt best with putting out the perspectives in place and objectively putting across calculations based on the current reality and on leads and visitor traffic and not “SEO is the answer all your Qs”

Search engines work on complex algorithms that are constantly changing. One should face the fact that instead of trying to figure out the algo science behind the same one should focus on the basics and get that act right. The exact workings of these algorithms remain undisclosed. Consequently, claiming absolute mastery over these algorithms is unfounded, as even experts can only make educated assumptions about the ranking factors.

Search engines regularly update their algos to counter manipulative practices. These updates can introduce significant shifts in search rankings, rendering previously successful strategies ineffective or even harmful. Therefore, one should be very wary of people claiming unwavering expertise in an ever-evolving landscape.

Claims of unrivalled SEO prowess often raise ethical concerns. Some individuals or companies may resort to black hat SEO techniques, which involve manipulating search engine algorithms through spammy practices. While these tactics may yield short-term gains, they pose a high risk of penalties and long-term damage to a website's reputation. It is important to prioritize ethical and sustainable SEO practices over empty promises of instant success.

Conclusion:

When it comes to SEO, it is vital to approach claims of unassailable expertise with scepticism. Instead of chasing unrealistic guarantees, it is advisable to focus on the basics, staying updated with industry trends, and fostering a long-term approach and looking at things more pragmatically. Hence, I conclude “SEO Prowess is a myth and why one should be wary of people claiming so!”