SEO: My Content Is Useless Without Traffic

Oct 26, 2011 - 9:15 am 20 by

SEO Content & Traffic JamA HighRankings Forum thread has an interesting post by a person who has a site that wants more traffic.

He made one statement that stood out to me, actually a few, but one more than others. The statement is:

All the design and content in the world are useless without traffic, and thus the real world need for SEO.

In today's world of SEO, this thinking seems backwards to me. All the design and content in the world leads to more traffic. Content and site design is part of SEO, it is SEO. Without the quality content, without the awesome user interface and site architecture - how do you get quality traffic from Google or Bing?

SEO 8 years ago, yea - this made sense. But nowadays, in most established niches, including insurance lead generation, you need the content first to get the traffic.

Ammon Johns, aka BlackKnight, who is an old time SEO and relatively quiet in the forums for the past few years, chimed in on this one adding:

First there seem to be the fact that you created a website without actually knowing what it is for. 'Possibly more' than a test site? It leaves me wondering if it really looks as professional as you hope, when yours apparently has no clear reason/purpose for existence other than to test some SEO ideas.

Secondly there's that whole thing of being overly concerned with what other sites are doing - researching the design, content and keywords of the top 20 websites in what field? The top 20 SEO test sites? How did you know they were top 20 before knowing what keywords they'd be ranked in the top 20 for? Do you see what I mean? There's a lot of logical fallacies involved here.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Image credit: robodread / Shutterstock.com.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google News

Judge: Google Illegally Engaged In Anticompetitive Monopolistic Ad Tech Practices

Apr 17, 2025 - 11:35 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2025

Apr 17, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Personalized Boost Ad Performance Email

Apr 17, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads API Version 19.1 Now Available

Apr 17, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Nothing Has Changed With International SEO with ccTLD Change

Apr 17, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Tests Video Player To Shopping / E-Commerce Card

Apr 17, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google Street View Cars Causing Dirty Roads