Get The Balance Right

Which is more important for content, the ability to communicate directly with visitors… or the search engine rankings it creates?

On the one extreme, imagine a website (or blog post, etc.) that is complete nonsense gibberish. Maybe envision something written in Chinese characters, assuming that’s a language you don’t understand. Now let’s say these random bits of code or symbols somehow rank quite well with the search engines, the very first organic result in fact.

What have you accomplished as a business or organization in this case?

Sure, loads of people may stumble upon your website, but once they get there what do you think will happen? Do you think they will “convert” to customers?

On the other end of the spectrum, imagine a block of written text that is so eloquent, so persuasive… that once a visitor reads it, they instantly want to become a customer, or donor, volunteer, etc.

However, because of the way it is written, it actually has zero SEO value. As such, it is invisible to the search engines, and no one who doesn’t already know your website exists will ever find it.

What has your business accomplished here? This example is marginally better than the first one; at least you could tell folks about your site!

Now yes, both scenarios are on the extremes, and unlikely. But they illustrate an important point. A typical business should NEVER just design or write solely for SEO, because the whole purpose of (most) sites is NOT to simply get visitors, but to have them DO something once they are there.

And the reverse is also true, you should never completely forget about SEO, either. This means following some basic guidelines in your web design and structure, and making sure to include the right keywords within your content, among other things.

Get the balance between SEO and readability/functionality correct, and you have a website that can help you accomplish your organization’s goals now, and in the future.