SEO: You Can Do It RIGHT And Still Get Whacked. Examples.

I’ve always said “never build your business on SEO” At least I have been saying that since 2012 when an ecommerce business I was running went from 6 figures per month to zero with the penguin update. SEO is largely a fools game — it’s the astrology of the business world.

I’ve generally followed my own words and built business with paid traffic.

But here I am, having just published a post about ‘Easy SEO Wins When Acquiring an Online Business’… and spending $$$ to execute it for the business I recently acquired.

So before I get too excited and dump too much money into SEO, I think it’s important to review the case studies of sites that have DONE SEO RIGHT and still gotten whacked by a Google update.

And by doing everything right I mean, having great valuable content, not chasing money keywords, not building backlinks, and having a great user experience.

Example A: SwimUniversity

This site publishes info about DIY pool care. All the content is published by owner Matt Giovanisci, who is indeed an expert on pool care. They film original content for a Youtube channel and have built a brand name with their name Swim University getting an estimated 2.4k searches per month. The site also passes Core Web Vitals

Despite the Perfect SEO work, SEMrush shows a substantial loss of traffic since their 2019-2020 highs.

It’s important to note, this is just an estimate. Matt has also acknowledged/discussed the down trend, but said that business is up (I believe him) as Youtube drives traffic and he has focused on running it like a business.

Example B: OnlineMediaMasters.com

This site publishes AMAZING content on web hosting and speed optimization, particularly to help users find FAST hosting and their sites passing Core Web Vitals. They post great test and comparison data. I’ve relied on the site for years to make hosting and optimization decisions and can confidently say “there is no better resource on the topic”.

Yet, despite being the best resource, this site has also experienced a major decline in traffic in the last couple years. The nice thing about the web hosting niche affiliate programs is they’re high paying recurring so even with substantially less traffic, the site still makes great money I’m sure.

On That Note;

Keeping your SEO expectations grounded, and focus on building a business with paid ads.

For the SEO efforts with the newly acquired business I’ll be into it for about $500 for speed optimization and about $10,000 of content (spread over the next year).

If it gets me no traffic that’s alright; the speed will help the users and the content can be used in marketing cycles (ie email drips). I’ll be thankful and happy for any free organic traffic it gets.