SEO is no longer a viable marketing strategy for startups

Many of the today’s most successful informational sites such as Yelp, Wikipedia and TripAdvisor relied heavily on SEO for their initial growth. Their marketing strategy (whether deliberate or not) was roughly: 1) build a community of contributors that created high-quality content, 2) become the definitive place to link to for the topics they covered, 3) rank highly in organic search results. This led to a virtuous cycle where SEO drew more users, leading to more contributors and more inbound links, leading to more SEO, and so on. From roughly 2001-2008, SEO was the most effective marketing channel for high-quality informational sites.

I talk to lots of startups and almost none that I know of post-2008 have gained significant traction through SEO (the rare exceptions tend to be focused on content areas that were previously un-monetizable). Google keeps its ranking algorithms secret, but it is widely believed that inbound links are the preeminent ranking factor. This ends up rewarding sites that are 1) older and have built up years of inbound links 2) willing to engage in aggressive link building, or what is known as black-hat SEO. (It is also very likely that Google rewards sites for the simple fact that they are older. For educated guesses on which factors matter most for SEO, see SEOMoz’s excellent search engine ranking factors survey).

Consider, for example, the extremely lucrative category of hotel searches. Search Google for “Four Seasons New York” and this ad-riddled TripAdvisor page ranks highly:

(TechCrunch had a very good article on the TripAdvisor’s decline in quality).

In contrast, this cleaner and more informative page from the relatively new website Oyster ranks much lower in Google results:

As a result, web users have a worse experience and startups are incentivized to clutter their pages with ads and use aggressive tactics to increase their SEO when they should just be focused on creating great user experiences.

The web economy (ecommerce + advertising) is a multi-hundred billion dollar market. Much of this revenue comes from traffic that comes from SEO. This has led to a multibillion-dollar SEO industry. Some of the SEO industry is “white hat,” which generally means consultants giving benign advice for making websites search-engine friendly. But there is also a huge industry of black-hat SEO consultants who trade and sell links, along with companies like content farms that promote their own low-quality content through aggressive SEO tactics.

Google seems to be doing everything it can to improve its algorithms so that the best content rises to the top (the recent “panda” update seems to be a step forward). But there are many billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people working to game SEO. And for now, at least, high-quality content seems to be losing. Until that changes, startups – who generally have small teams, small budgets, and the scruples to avoid black-hat tactics – should no longer consider SEO a viable marketing strategy.

http://www.foamrollerguide.com/ Zachary

Its really getting harder and harder for small internet marketers to make it to the business as google keeps changing things. My question though is if they are trying to rank websites with high quality content, what are the criteria to qualify for that? what would they consider high quality content?
Anonymous

As a founder fo a very much an SEO reliant company in the auto space I very much agree with the content of the post and the discussion that ensued (not with the headline as dave pointed out..) There are a few verticals such as health and autos that are very reliant on search traffic (both topics not social by nature..) and therefore a startup has to either do well @ SEO or worse pay for it.

the lessor of 2 evils is clearly to do well @ SEO. We did extraordinarily in search rankings however… to Chris’s point being at the whim of the google algorithm is a very dangerous strategy Furthermore in the game of SEO with strong incumbents you cant out-nimble in SEO a pagerank 8 site so unless they truly screw up and loose their pagerank u have an uphill climb to unseat them

ad therefore in order to truly win a young company needs to figure out how to play outside the google search sandbox e.g. Create whitelable experiences outside your domain, play well in the social news space etc
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Austadpro

Small businesses need to find the right SEO company to help them. SEO should be a long term plan. I’m pleased to say that the SEO company I work for (Austad Productions http://www.austadpro.com) does ‘white hat’ SEO specifically for small and local business and it works. We think Google should step up and tried even harder to get rid of link farms, black hat techniques. SEO is not a ‘get rich quick’ type of marketing that many think it is.
Njhometheater

We’ve had some good success with SEO since 2008. When the economy tanked we reinvested in our website and began SEO and have seen busy increase because of it. And it’s not like what we sell is inexpensive, we are a NJ audio visual company (http://www.ahrav.com). WIthout SEO I think there would have been layoffs. Now that we’ve seen success with SEO we want to add more social media.
Searchexpert

Before arguing whether SEO is dead or not, can you answer – “How many times a day you go to Google looking for some piece of information?” If your answer is 0 then I would buy your point. Otherwise whether it is a viable strategy or not, or whether Google keeps changing its rules/algos, you will have to make sure (atleast try) that your website shows up in top 10. Infact, SEM is extremely expensive, Facebook is still not that big. So you are left with Google. Infact SEO is extremely important. Though one should make sure that if SEO traffic goes away, you still survive. As you are doing SEO, make sure you are cultivating other channels as well.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

no one said seo is dead.

http://500startups.com/ Dave McClure

i think this thread is dead. as in, like a beaten horse

http://lincolnnguyen.com Lincoln Nguyen

Content is still king. The same is true now even after the algo change. If you provide a truly useful utility, you will be favored int he search results.
Anonymous

I’m Co-founder & CSO of Tribesports (http://tribesports.com) a start-up in the sports space (still in private beta).

This issue is close to my heart, as when we were putting the plan together we considered each distribution platform (web, mobile, fbook etc) and thought about what each of those platforms offered both a user of Tribesports, and Tribesports itself, and also considered what was the optimum strategy for scaling user acquistion versus cost versus (and most importantly) how integrated each strategy was with solving the user problem(s) we are solving. Naturally that means a bespoke product suite with each platform-product being sufficiently nuanced to take advantage/leverage the platform upon which it sits, while at all times solving the user problem.

In support of Chris’ point, there ARE smarter, cheaper and more valuable ways to acquire users than SEO; Gogobot’s way of using Facebook’s social graph that actually adds value to that user & his fbook activity feed (rather than just spamming it), while, of course, helping Gogobot’s marketing dept is neat; and its why Zynga & Groupon have made billionaires out of their founders over the last couple years, and just look at how Foursquare has wowed with a product that would have been an almost impossible sell four years ago.

However, we (perhaps naively) still think that with the right vertical, and a fresh (ideally smart) SEO strategy, there is still life in the old web yet. We just ain’t betting on it.

David
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Anonymous

There are lots of great conversations here, but I believe the summary comes down to this – if you’re in an overheated marketplace (mortgages, finance, restaurant reviews), breaking out of the pack with ANY run-of-the-mill marketing strategy is not likely going to succeed. SEO is simply one of those run-of-the-mill techniques. Direct mailings for mortgages would be the same (when’s the last time you actually read a newsletter from a realtor or bank on how much lower rates can go?)

That said, there is a huge amount of search intent out there not currently being satisfied with the current results – we (Hark.com) currently get hundreds of thousands of long tail searches resulting in millions of users because we have high quality content that either does not currently exist, or is currently filled only by spammers and black-hats. And we’re only at the start – there are 4 B entertainment related searches every month (our content area of expertise), surely they aren’t ALL being met by current offerings, and that’s where SEO plays best. Google is the home page for the Web, SEO is your best bet to get in there.
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http://www.seo-theory.com/ Michael Martinez

Ignore the critics. Stick to your guns. Your gut instinct is correct. If startups enter the world of search thinking that SEO is a bucket of tricks that should be used to game the search engines, everyone is better off without startups employing “SEO”.
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http://www.LinkedMediaGroup.com Linked Media Group, Inc.

Chris,

I think you touched a nerve with this post! I agree with you in that many VC backed startups aren’t leveraging SEO. But, I’m not sure it’s because many don’t see value in it or have resorted to black hat techniques. Yes, this may be part of the equation.

But, in my experience, when you look at many of their sites they just don’t get SEO or Social Media Marketing for real time search optimization and most importantly, the importance of relying on marketing methodologies and processes that reinforce each other.

1) Many don’t understand basic content development: i.e generating high quality content, cross linking, image integration and optimization within the content, refreshing the content, load times, minimizing Flash, etc.

2) SEO best practices: on page optimization, Privacy doc, Meta Tags, Local listing, backlinks using legitimate techniques, H1 tags, etc.

3) Blog optimization is really poor at best when I look at many of these startups: wrong platform, not WordPress, wrong plugins or no plugins, content is not SEO optimized, post displays are wrong, imagery is either over the top radical or none at all. Many do not realize that a Blog is a wonderful way to generate high quality SEO results.

4) Most pay lip service and throw up a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or a LinkedIn account but miss the finer points of social media marketing.

*Cross promoting content via all social platforms
*Broadcasting builds a base but engagement creates results
*Spend too much time early on promoting and/or talking about Fluff
*Don’t understand how to leverage real time search attributes in the social stream
*Properly optimizing profiles and content to stand out above the herd
*Using SaaS apps to manage and optimize lead generation
*Recognizing you’ll ruin your social stream if used solely for CRM (take it offline)

SEO is still a wonderful way for any company (early or later stage) to generate significant traffic. But, as we move through this year, it’s critical for any company to understand how to leverage multiple reinforcing marketing methodologies that blend social, content strategy and SEO in meaningful ways.

I disagree with you about back link development only being successful for “older” sites or using black hat methods. We can turn a zero page ranked site into a 3-4 within 90-120 days (or less) using article marketing coupled with social media link integration, PR (in some cases) and blog post seeding.
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EUX5GRTJOQKT52PBFLBBV64XM4 Iva

Lots of startups have no success with SEO either because they’re doing SEO wrong (mostly by believing in quick magic recipes and hiring the cheapest “experts” they find), either because they chose to be in highly competitive fields where everything is more difficult, including SEO, so extra work and investment are necessary (that being said, last time I checked SEO was still one of the cheapest ways to promote a business). This isn’t about SEO not being useful to startups, it’s about startup owners not trying hard enough, not hiring the right people or simply attempting to achieve impossible things while lacking the means to do so. You give an example in the tourism industry, which is very competitive. If someone expects a local tourism business to pay very little for SEO and rank highly while competing with powerful websites, only to be disappointed when the desired ranking isn’t achieved, I don’t necessarily see it as SEO not being useful for a local tourism business. I see it simply as delusion on the part of the business owner.
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Anonymous

Will this be changed with Social Search? I can only wonder. I think that SEO is not enough if you want to convert your site visitors into warm leads. Besides, you may wear all hats you can have and if your site don’t offer something valuable and trustworthy, all those efforts will fail. Customers are smarter these days and they can simply hit the back button faster than the speed of type when they check out a real crappy site on the top page.
http://www.industrialtraffic.com/ SEO Guru Doug

Very interesting insight from a Non SEO perspective. From an in the trenches SEO online marketing specialist kind of guy’s experiences, I could not disagree with you more than I do.

Our clients and our daily bread and butter is put on the table from our organic SEO efforts. Perhaps we have very differing definitions of SEO and start-ups. Mine follows; I new business that could expect a ROI from attracting and converting new customers and/or clients online with the help of an SEO specialist.
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http://twitter.com/Ken_Vsky Ken Vermeille

It seems like everyone here said what I wanted to say except for the fact that using tactics such as blogging and leveraging social media can lead to high rankings. Also google recently changed its algorithm to discourage content scraping.
http://this1that1whatever.com David Wong

Given that the top-10 search results get 95% of the clicks, it is understandable that upstarts don’t have much of a chance as it is very difficult to get into those positions.
http://twitter.com/germanmade Sebastian Reichelt

Chris, great post that opens a lot of room for thought and discussion. I’d like to jump in with a real world example of how SEO can be done in a startup without spending money and other resources.

My startup, StyleFactory.com, has made a search engine friendly site a priority from day 1. The highest priority was building a community. I’m proud to say that due to great PR, a great community and smart choices, we’re on page 1 in Google for ‘designer furniture’ and position 2 behind eHow for ‘buy designer furniture’. We’re also in the top 20-30 for ‘modern furniture’ and ‘contemporary furniture’. At the same time, we’re producing high-quality content for our blog on a daily basis, that again ranks well.
The trust that goes along with it in the perception of a brand is immeasurable.
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http://twitter.com/bonesonrong thkya-careof,ty-c0bb

This is more than true.
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http://twitter.com/mrschwabe Schwabe

I agree to an extent; the basis of my contention is that SEO is an ‘unstable’ marketing channel. It could all fall apart at anytime. Granted, if you have a long term SEO strategy and expect to effectively dominate your market in every other area – there’s no reason not to invest some resources into climbing the search ladder and beat your competitors there too.
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http://www.online-business-virtual-assistant.com/ Virtual office assistant

That’s a great post. But without SEO we will not be given any rank by Google and startups like us will not be shown in results of the great search engine. So i feel for some extent SEO for startups is essential.
http://twitter.com/EcommerceBoy Ecommerce Boy

As a marketing tactic, I think SEO is essentially dead. Rather, content is now — and always has been — king.
http://twitter.com/EcommerceBoy Ecommerce Boy

As a marketing tactic, I think SEO is essentially dead. Rather, content is now — and always has been — king.
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http://twitter.com/wkathome Dan Johnson

Thanks for the remarks on SEO, and yes, getting lots of good quality back links to your site is a real challenge. I think that in the long run, good content will soon win out with all the changes that Google keeps making and that will give the legitimate blog owners the edge.
thanks again, good points.

http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

Actually Dan, search and good content to drive social referrals, at the end, end up being the same…http://bt.io/GvHa

http://www.timedoctor.com Rob Rawson

Have to say I disagree with this, it really depends on the type of start up. If you are looking to rank for major keywords such as “project management software”, yes you might as well forget it as there are hundreds of competitors with thousands of links. However if you create great content (the best available on the web for that topic are) in some slightly niche keywords, you can get traffic. It’s working for us at http://timedoctor.com and it works particular well for local businesses (where the competition is not as great).

The keys are great content, good publicity and some knowledge of SEO.
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Chris Dixon