SEO is a series of strategies that are used to gain the best possible placement in organic search results. With social media becoming so popular along with other forms of advertising, you may be wondering if SEO is still really necessary. There are two ways to look at the question.

1. Can you deliver a reasonable supply of traffic to your website without the use of search?
2. Can you afford to miss out on free traffic that comes via the search engines?

If you’re Rupert Murdoch (see our post on Can You Think Of A Good Reason To Ban The Search Engines?) then perhaps you can succeed without the search engines. There are going to be businesses that could succeed without the search engines. Social media sites like Twitter where you can gain instant marketing opportunities could be perfect for some businesses, particularly local businesses like restaurants, fast food and the like.

For most online businesses, the free traffic delivered via organic search results forms the backbone of their success. Social marketing and other forms of advertising then build on that organic traffic. Takeaway the backbone and you have nothing to fall back on.

A good example has been the recent economic downturn. Online advertising fell away quite sharply simply because businesses looked for ways to cut costs. Those businesses that had undertaken strong SEO programs in the past continued to enjoy a steady flow of traffic from the search engines, without having to pay for the advertising.

It may be ten years before we see another downturn like that recently witnessed. But then, it could be two years -we simply don’t know. Positioning yourself well in the search results at least provides that backbone to build your business.

Is SEO still necessary to succeed online? For most online businesses, the answer is a resounding yes. For those that can get by without any SEO strategies – good luck to you, until the next recession.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.