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SEO Is Not A Web Strategy

John Pozadzides posted an article on Lorelle VanFossen's blog this morning about SEO practices and blogging. In that post he made reference to the ongoing "war of words" between those who think SEO is dead and those who believe SEO is more important than ever. John states that the truth is somewhere in the middle. He then goes on to outline some of the "common sense" SEO techniques that have other benefits as well. It's a good list, you should go read it.

The point of this post, however, is not simply echo John's SEO tips. Rather, I want to make the point that SEO, like anything else, does not exist in a vacuum. It is not, in and of itself, a web strategy.

The hardest thing about a comprehensive web strategy is managing the tradeoffs and compromises between the various components of the strategy itself. One of these components should always be SEO - but there are others: (in no particular order) infrastructure, traffic acquisition (search marketing), audience engagement, development cost, usability, accessibility, etc.

Part of the problem that the SEO industry faces is that it is a specialist industry. SEO consultants are not paid to take the entire strategy in consideration. Maximize the rank. This is also true, of course, for accessibility consultants and infrastructure providers. It just happens that SEO catches the flack because of the intense focus on it for the last few years.

The Strategy:

For any inter/intra/extranet web project, make sure there is someone whose job it is to develop the overall web strategy. That person must be prepared to manage the advice of the various specialists (SEO, usability, infrastructure, etc.) that will insist that their particular area if expertise will make or break the project. That person must also accept that one of them might be right.