SEO Has Always Been About One Thing

This post was written the old-fashioned way - by a human. No AI was used to generate this content.

It’s more important now than ever to actually understand what search engine optimization is… or, as the cool kids call it, SEO.

Yes, we are living in a moment in time where everyone is caught up in AI. The tech world is pushing hard for everything to be integrated into some type of generative artificial intelligence. Search engines are starting to ditch the traditional “ten blue links” and push AI conversations to the very top of the page. Websites are seeing fewer clicks and less traffic. The world feels a little chaotic, and even the search engine geniuses are having a hard time telling people what to do.

You would think I would be scared - a niche agency that built its foundation on SEO. But I’m not. In fact, I’m confident that we will come out ahead.

Understanding What SEO Really Is

I’ve always been irritated by marketing companies selling SEO packages. They make it sound like it’s a deliverable - like a television commercial or a radio ad. You buy this package and automatically rank at the top. And I get it. Explaining SEO to a local business owner can be hard. It’s easier to say, “You get this, this, and this” for the month. But that’s not really real.

For something that is pretty hard to explain, the definition of SEO is actually pretty simple.

SEO is about improving your website so search engines better understand your product.

Sure, you can get pretty technical and throw around terms like organic traffic, visibility, relevance, authority, yadda yadda yadda. But at its core, search engine optimization is about making your website better.

And what is better? Is that subjective?

Yeah, sometimes.

Is your website better by adding a video to your homepage? Maybe.

Would we consider your website better by removing thirteen pages? Depends.

Would changing from Squarespace to WordPress make your website better? It’s possible.

You’re shaking your head and are likely just as confused as the clients who want an SEO package. Even though it’s as simple as “make your website better,” we find ourselves wondering what that even means.

What Are the Rules for SEO?

As with all games, there are rules. But just like your family game of Monopoly, sometimes the rules are changed, adapted, and then preached as gospel. No matter how many times you read the directions, someone in your family still thinks there’s a “Free Parking jackpot.” And no matter how many times companies like Google provide documentation on healthy SEO, someone will find a “hack” and convince the world that this is the real way to play the game.

As you may be aware, Google is the top dog when it comes to search engines. For that reason, most people want to be #1 on Google’s SERP (search engine results page). That also means we pay way more attention to Google’s rules than Bing’s or any other competitor’s. Google provides documentation that helps web designers and content marketers better understand the “rules.” These Webmaster Guidelines - now called Google Search Essentials - are updated and widely available. Granted, sometimes it’s not as binary as we’d like, but it’s all there.

But just like any old game, there are players who will find loopholes and exploit them. There are others who cry foul, don’t like the rules, and feel they are being cheated. So we have bad actors who will do whatever it takes to win or flip the entire game - throwing all of the pieces across the room. And that’s why things tend to be so cryptic.

This creates the famous “it depends” answer that all SEOs have added to the top of their vernacular.

Will making this change make my website better and help the search engine better understand my product?
It depends (on a lot of things).

Increasing Your Website Rank

If the simple answer is that we need to make our website better, but everything we do is answered with “it depends,” it’s no wonder people are confused.

The confusion happens because we have the question ever so slightly wrong.

We ask if our actions helped us increase our rank. Did those changes move us up the list to #1?

And although we can certainly track day-to-day changes, it’s incredibly difficult to say whether one, two, or an infinite number of changes on your website impacted your overall rank. Sure, smart people know that certain things will ideally give you a bump, but things are never really done in a vacuum.

Instead of asking whether changes helped increase rank, we should be asking, “Did making this change help the search engine better understand our product?”

Understanding Your Product

Over the years, almost all SEOs would suggest that if you wanted to win a single keyword, you needed a dedicated page on your site for that keyword. In theory, the more content you had on that page, the better chance you had of ranking for that term. And we weren’t wrong. In the early days, you would make page after page for specific terms, hoping someone would type a similar query and your individual, customized page would show as the top result.

This worked… and it was obviously gamed.

The search engines caught on. Sometimes these pages were the best results, but over time the technology became less dependent on individual pages and started collecting more data from other sources to better understand the search. The tech got smarter, and it became less about creating a million pages - which was great news for good SEOs who were tired of making countless pages with only slight variations.

Instead, the focus shifted to providing the most relevant information on your site and letting Google and other search engines do their job by recommending the most valuable result.

If you were selling red shoes, you should still mention red shoes… but maybe you didn’t need a 12,000-word page talking only about red shoes. Maybe you just focused on making a kickass page about shoes and mentioned that they come in red.

Search engines really don’t want to make things up. They want to take information from websites and match it to the right results. The biggest problem with most local companies and brands is that they don’t tell search engines enough about their business. They have a single-page website filled with marketing fluff. They think one service page with a bulleted list is enough.

If you want to see gains in your rankings, first ask yourself whether you’ve done everything you can to explain your product to the search engine. That’s the easiest way to know if you’re practicing good SEO.

AI Disruption

For everyone scared about how AI is changing the game and the way search works - no, it’s not. It’s doing the exact same thing Google and Bing have been working toward for years. The big difference comes down to how much AI understands the user and their intent compared to traditional search engines.

ChatGPT, Gemini, and all of their friends have an advantage. They are learning a lot about us. When we ask for a recommendation, they know our previous chats and can provide a result that’s highly detailed and tailored to us. Your average Google search isn’t quite that sophisticated.

It’s a lot like gift-giving. A work gift exchange is always tough because we don’t know the guy from accounting that well. We see his Star Wars calendar and figure a Baby Yoda mug would be a good gift. He might like it, but it probably won’t be the best gift he’s ever received.

On the other hand, you can spend less time and energy buying a gift for your best friend. You’ve had conversations with them, know their interests, and understand what they do in their free time. That gift is far more personalized - and likely better.

The big difference? You know way more about your best friend. And how do you know more? They’ve told you.

They didn’t tell you exactly what to buy, but you had enough context from previous conversations to make a great choice.

If a website does its job and lists as much relevant information as possible, search engines and AI tools can do their job and make the match.

SEO and AI SEO have the same goal.
They reward the same things.

Easy SEO

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of tactics and checklist items you can use to make your website rank higher. I’m not dismissing technical SEO or the very bright people who truly understand the algorithm. There will be a time when you need those people and those tactics to get ahead.

The thing is, most businesses and brands don’t need that help yet. Most businesses aren’t doing the fundamental thing that makes SEO work. They’re not providing enough information on the internet.

My go-to comparison is always losing weight (subconsciously, I’m probably telling myself something). If you go to the gym and walk on a treadmill, you should see some success. If you hire a personal trainer, you’ll likely see more success - and faster. But most people don’t go straight from the couch to hiring a trainer. They usually start with a simple gym membership.

For most businesses in local markets, you can start by pulling up your website and adding content. Ask yourself questions about your business. Do you have the answers on your website? Are those answers convincing and helpful? Can your website tell your entire story without someone having to call or email?

If the answer is no, you have some easy things to work on.

And when you answer those questions, search engines (and chatbots) will find you and reward the effort.

Next Steps

If this sounds like more work than you want to take on, or you simply don’t have the bandwidth, there are people who can help. Sometimes you just need an accountability partner or someone to ask the right questions and take the notes. There are seamless (and painless) ways to make this process easier for a business or brand.

If you want to hire the personal trainer (aka the SEO expert), reach out. We’ll gladly listen to your story and help get it onto the internet. It’s the first step to successful SEO.