Industry prognosticators have been crying SEO is dead for decades.
Every new algo update spurs a wave of Chicken Little-types who cry, “the sky is falling!”
Rightfully so. Algo updates have decimated even large, well-funded companies that relied too heavily on the whims of Google’s algorithm.
But, like many sectors impacted by AI, SEO will also continue to have a waning effect on your business.
As such, you should–at least in part–start to prepare for the “new normal” as it relates to consumer and business search marketing trends and how it will impact your business.
What follows will mostly exclude digs/swipes at unscrupulous SEO practitioners (even if many in this unregulated wild west continue selling frosting-covered dung).
It will more prominently include the critical industry trends your SEO company may be failing to tell you, but that will be necessary for your digital survival.
Below we’ll talk about the pros and cons of still using SEO, what to do in conjunction, and why many businesses are treading more lightly when it comes to huge budgets in the realm of organic search marketing.
Table of Contents
SEO Takes More Time Than Ever
The time to rank is now more elongated than ever.
What once took 6-12 months can now take a minimum of 3-6 years, depending on your existing competition.
Let that sink in.
Did I also mention it’s going to cost you thousands to play authority/rankings catch-up with even your lowest competitor?
To make matters worse, if your competitors continue to invest in SEO, you are never likely to truly catch up because they will almost always be ahead.
It’s like trying to bridge the age gap between a new college grad and a senior citizen. Not possible!
Unless you’re operating in a complete blue ocean (which likely has zero search volume anyway), you may be better off running a PPC marketing strategy to bring some bread in the door.
You will need to do a rough ROI computation of your expected traffic, subsequent revenue from 1-3% conversions of said traffic, and factor in the time element along with your SEO budget.
The unmentioned “time” component is even more costly than the overall cost of your SEO campaign!
Rankings Don’t Always Equal Revenue
Some clients are obsessively focused on ranking for specific keywords.
But they eventually discover that ranking for those keywords does not have the positive ROI they may have anticipated.
Here’s my personal take:
- Even top 10 rankings may not do it anymore. Top 1-5 rankings are often critical for actually driving real, quality leads that bring revenue.
- Even if you are able to rank in the coveted top 5 for your niche (which is regularly getting more difficult for national terms), you may be pushed below local results, PAA, Google Ads, LSAs, etc. Which means your top 5 rankings is probably actually top 15 of the clickable results. Organic results don’t mean what they once meant.
- Even if you are able to capture revenue in excess of the cost to get you to rank and maintain those rankings over time, have you considered your profit (sans COGS) and what your CLTV looks like? If your purchase from a client is one-off and non-recurring, then your overall ROI from SEO and content marketing may actually be negative!
- Search patterns are changing FAST. AI is capturing more of the long tail search volume and is available on all Meta applications (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.) and on a slew of other LLM sources. What may have once been a healthy search volume on Google may not hold the weight it once did.
- Without a conversion rate optimization audit, a page with traffic may not be a page that converts your ideal customer–unless you truly run A/B tests at scale.
Your SEO Agency May Be Outsourcing Your SEO Services
Sadly, some SEO companies are doing white label SEO without telling you.
In our business, roughly 40% of our overall revenue comes from our white label SEO partners.
That means 40% of our customer relationships are not owned, controlled, or communicated with directly.
It also means there is a middle-man markup on the SEO services!
Demand transparency.
It’s okay to outsource key aspects as it can lead to higher-quality service, but greater transparency should be provided.
Roughly 10% of those who brand themselves as SEO resellers simply put us in touch with their client directly. In such cases, all fees are transparent and the outsourcing SEO agency is more involved in strategy than in campaign execution.
The greater transparency also allows for more collaborative eyes to mitigate risks and solve perplexing problems.
SEO Requires Ongoing Effort – It’s Not a One-Time Fix
SEO is an evolving field that requires continuous optimization.
Google algorithm updates can shift rankings overnight.
Consistent content updates and technical improvements matter more than ever.
It’s never one-and-done.
This is likely a bit of a red herring, as most SEO agencies are incentivized to tell you this.
It’s how they make their money by selling you more SEO services!
You Might Be Paying for Unnecessary Services
Some agencies bundle in services you don’t need.
One of the things I love about where AI is taking this is that AI can disintermediate SEO services like SEO audits, getting you to the crux of your issues and focus on low-hanging fruit for the quickest route to ROI.
Agency salespeople upsell all the time, but if you’re educated, you won’t buy something you don’t need.
I always recommend 3-4 quotes, proposals and recommendations asking pointed questions like, “If I had a limited budget, which of these SEO services would be the first that YOU would cut out?”
Then, cut it. It likely won’t move the needle and is just fluff.
SEO Alone Isn’t Enough – It Needs to Work With Other Strategies
SEO is one part of a holistic digital marketing strategy.
Never solely rely on SEO as your one method of distribution for marketing and sales.
Diversify your marketing streams!
Omnichannel marketing leads to better results because your customers are omnichannel. They’re not just on Google!
AI is Going to Kill SEO Agencies, Not SEO
AI and AI agents are putting more tools and power into the hands of single people, without the need for massive teams.
What once required an entire team of writers, outreach managers, campaign managers, and project professionals can now be accomplished with a skeleton crew.
AI is negatively changing SEO in general in the following ways:
- AI is further shoving Google results down the page with AI overviews
- Search engines are using AI to fight AI (including content production using generative AI)
- Searchers are looking at other platforms to get answers to long-tail queries (not just Google)
But when people look for a service, they continue to use Google. That is slowly shifting, but the authority ranking score is still beating the LLMs copied version of it.
Many of the local service-based businesses who rely on local ads and local rankings are likely to continue performing well.
The folks who should be the most concerned are those who run the SEO agencies themselves.
Where Do We Go From Here?
1. Ask the right, hard-hitting questions of your SEO company
Hold them accountable. Get them talking. Make sure the service offerings are transparent.
1. Local search results continue to dominate!
That’s why we are very much focused on local SEO services for everything from law firm SEO to dentists and doctors.
2. Focus on optimizing for organic queries across platforms (i.e. diversify distribution streams).
In general, optimizing for Google will also help you show up on ChatGPT and Perplexity.ai, but that doesn’t mean you’re showing up on TikTok and Instagram.
3. Be proactive and monitor rankings, but don’t obsess over them.
More flux is coming. Search engine volatility is crazier than ever, and we fully expect it to remain high going forward.
SEO is not dead, but those who rely on it need to stay closely abreast of current changes to know how to act and pivot as new advances roll out.
As the wave of AI continues to sweep the internet, it’s important to note that:
As long as there is some form of “search engine” there will be a strategy to optimize for visibility on it.
- What Your SEO Company Isn’t Telling You - March 13, 2025
- How to Conduct Original Research on a Budget - October 4, 2021
