by Irene Lizarraga

Created on: March 23, 2010

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has become the holy grail of marketers and website owners. Under the premise that if Google likes a website the masses will flock to it, thousands of websites have been optimized to an inch of their lives, and more are to follow. Many website owners embark on SEO campaigns and forget about everything else, expecting that high rankings on the search engines will bring them online success. However, they risk their hopes being crushed when they discover that there are things that SEO won't do for your website.

SEO won't make your site sell more
No matter how optimized your website is for the most relevant keywords, a high search engine ranking doesn't mean your visitors are going to become customers. That depends on factors such as the products you're offering, the competition, how easy is to shop at your site, what payment systems you offer... Don't expect the number of sales to be proportional to the increase in traffic or you may be disappointed. Visitors that find your website through Google may be just looking for information and reviews before even deciding to buy.

SEO won't make your visitors love your site
It can, however, make them really dislike it. If you design a website for Search Engines instead of people you may find that people just leave right after landing on it. This applies specially to copy written with Search Engines in mind, stuffed with keywords and difficult to follow sentences. SEO by itself won't improve your website.

SEO won't build loyalty to your brand
This one is closely related to the above... if your website doesn't have quality content, a nice web design and it's easy to use, your visitors won't remember it after leaving and won't come back (until they stumble upon it on another search engine results page). If you think SEO will make your visitors remember you when they actually want to buy what you're selling, you are expecting too much.

SEO is similar to having a prime location in the busiest shopping mall of the country. It allows people to find you when they are looking for whatever you provide. However, a SEO campaign that just focuses on optimizing for the Search Engines without making the website better for their users (with better content, improved usability and better design) will result in lots of potential customers leaving without looking back. If you are thinking of following a SEO guide blindly, or hiring a Search Engine Optimization agency that only talks about rankings, think about this and make sure your SEO efforts contribute to the quality of your website and it's usefulness to your potential customers.

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