Is it “Good for SEO”?

People often ask me, “David, is it good for SEO?” I don’t know how to answer that question because I don’t know what “good” is.

One day, as I was ranting about this, a colleague asked me, “What do they really mean when they ask that?”

Does It Rank?

When someone asks if something is “good for SEO,” they mean, “Does it rank?”

While ranking is great, is that really what the goal should be? Because theoretically, we could think of any number of terms you might be able to rank. However, rank doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get a visitor for it. Just because you think of a term, it doesn’t mean that nobody else in the universe is also thinking of that term right now.

So, rank isn’t the end goal of an SEO campaign.

UPDATE: As Google rolls out AI Mode and AI-generated answers to search queries, rank is officially dead. This is why some people claim that SEO is dead: they are limited in thinking SEO is only about ranking. However, now that we’re moving from SEO to AIO, we need to rethink how we evaluate our campaigns’ success.

Does It Bring Traffic?

Clients want a rank that generates traffic because people search for them. However, we could think of phrases that bring in traffic, but that doesn’t necessarily help our clients or their websites because that traffic doesn’t bring new customers.

UPDATE: Since LLMs are not classified as “organic search” in Google Analytics’ default Channel Definitions, you might need to set up a different report to help you measure traffic from them.

Bringing in traffic doesn’t mean it’s good for SEO, either.

What is Your Ultimate Goal?

Something is “good for SEO” if it accomplishes its purpose. In other words, we have to consider what we want the customer to do when they come to our website.

What do you want customers to do when they visit your website? Some companies have never thought about this. They think their website is just a digital brochure. No wonder they’re only thinking about “rank” and “traffic”.

If you’re using your website’s full power, visitors can do something after visiting your site. That “something” should be to become your customer. They should (easily) be able to contact you through a web form or a phone call. That’s the end goal of an SEO campaign.

Of course, you’ll never know if something accomplished this unless you can track it. You should always know how someone became a customer. This is why web analytics is essential to an SEO (or any internet marketing campaign, for that matter).

Do not get distracted by rank in SEO. Don’t just think about traffic either. Sure, rank leads to traffic. But more importantly, traffic helps accomplish the business goal of your site. And that’s how you know something is good for SEO.