Why you shouldn’t do SEO

When SEO doesn’t make sense

There are two main scenarios when SEO doesn’t make sense. 

If you don’t have product market fit or if demand (search volume) isn’t high enough given these current metrics:

• LTV (Lifetime value)

• Average order value (AOV)

• Conversion rate (CRV)

Product market fit

If you don’t have product market fit, you don’t have an accurate ideal customer profile (ICP). You also don’t know if people even like your product/service.

Meaning, you have no idea who you should market to.

You might have an idea, but more times than not, your product and ICP are fluid in the beginning stages. 

You need to fail fast and figure out if your product/service is actually useful for the market. 

Get feedback on your product/service and once it’s stellar, then we can market. 

Remember what Naval says: 

The fastest way to get feedback, in my opinion, is ads.

Or influencer marketing, or social media, or . . . pretty much anything besides SEO. SEO is beautiful, but it’s also the slowest growth channel of them all.

Once your product and ICP are dialed in, then you start looking at long-term growth options.

Two years ago I was subconsulting through a B2B growth agency and they sold a SaaS client (let’s call them HireGenius) an SEO package. 

The issue? HireGenius didn’t have product market fit. It had one customer! 

The team behind HireGenius had an idea of who their ICP was, but with just one customer . . . they didn’t know.

Yet here they were, spending $10,000+ each month on SEO services. 

Needless to say, cash flow became an issue and the contract was canceled after three months.

Demand (search volume)

The other common issue I see is people not doing keyword research/mapping before investing in SEO or selling services.

You need to spend time and figure out if it actually makes sense. 

If you don’t, you’re going to have a long line of pissed-off clients or a cash-poor business.

HireGenius was an AI software for HR.

Go ahead and take a guess at how many people search that each month. No one. Literally no one . . . lol. 

I also just completed an audit for a CrossFit gear company, and while the results were a bit more nuanced, SEO didn’t make sense for it. 

One of its main keywords was CrossFit grips. 

This site was in the ninth position for this keyword and if it got to the number one slot, traffic would increase by 500 visitors.

If we assume a one percent conversion rate, that’s an additional five customers each month. . . . 

With an average order value of $35, it’d be looking at a whopping $175 in extra revenue each month.

What’s more, to get the site in the number one position, I was looking at ~$5,000 in cost. 

So, we’re looking at a payoff period of ~2 years. . . . It just didn’t make sense for this company to focus on SEO. 

One caveat: I always find business owners don’t know the LTV of their customers, yet it’s one of the most important metrics for a business. The higher you get this, the more you can spend to acquire a customer.

One way to get this up (there are many ways) is to expand your product offering on the back end.

Maybe you only get $175 in revenue from CrossFit grips, but don’t forget, you’re acquiring five new customers each month.

These new customers now know and trust you because you sold them a solid product.

Then on the back end, you sell an in-person retreat for $5,000 at CrossFit Wanderlust in Bali.

All of a sudden, your LTV increases drastically and you’re cool losing money on the front-end because you make it up on the back end.

When SEO does make sense

SEO works when the inverse of the two points above are true. 

1. You have product market fit

2. Demand (search volume) is present

If a client has a proven product or service, I always propose we figure out the total addressable market (TAM) for their business via SEO.

This will allow us to see if the numbers make sense.

Best way to do this is to keyword map their entire site. 

I’m talking product pages, category pages, landing pages, and articles (top, middle, and bottom of funnel).

Tryggvi outlines this idea very well in this tweet thread. While he’s speaking specifically to e-commerce brands, it’s relevant for all businesses.

Once done, we start doing the maths. 

You need to know/assume LTV, AOV, and CVR to figure out potential revenue increase and then pair them with estimated costs associated with getting those rankings.

Example: If the CrossFit brand mentioned above was willing to expand into general fitness, the picture looks a lot better.

Let’s say they wanted to rank for CrossFit weight vest with a monthly traffic potential of 150.

Assuming an AOV of $130 and a conversion rate of 1%, we’d be looking at $225 in additional revenue.

But if they targeted “weighted vest,” the traffic potential would be 6,200.

Assuming all the same numbers as above, now we’re looking at an additional $8,060 in revenue. 

Not to mention all different variations of “weighted vest”: 

• weighted vest for running

• weighted vest for walking

• weighted vest for women

The best part? All this shit is the same. 

Doesn’t matter if you’re doing CrossFit, running, walking, a man, a woman, or whatever. A weighted vest is a weighted vest. . . .

If we build out dedicated pages for each of these derivatives and open up to the general fitness population, now we can see SEO makes sense for this company. 

Your next steps

Whether you’re looking to invest in SEO, take on more clients, or double-down on your efforts, make sure to plan and quantify your efforts. 

SEO makes sense for a lot of brands, but not for all.