Sorry, SEO (or AI) Ain’t Saving Your Business.
If it isn't expensive, time consuming or burdensome, it's not likely to work (long-term.)
Thank you to this week’s #SEOForLunch sponsor SEOTESTING.COMAs I focus on writing content for the new year, I’d love to get your feedback. Will you take this 3-question survey for me? The more data I collect, the better content I can write for you all!
In my 15-year SEO career, I can spot one client type from a mile away, and the conversation that follows always bums me out. It is the business owner reaching out to “fix their SEO” as a last-ditch attempt to save a collapsing business.
Here is the TL;DR: organic visibility (whether it is search or an answer engine) captures demand, it does not create it. And it sure as hell does not fix poor service or a shitty product.
Please pull up a chair to the lunch table and let us talk more.
Please support today’s sponsor, SEOTESTING.COM.
Sponsors keep the #SEOForLunch newsletter 100% free each week.
The New SEOTesting App Is Here!
Your SEO changes deserve cleaner reporting.
The new SEOTesting app brings your tests, annotations, dashboards, and content groups into one clean, decision-ready workspace. Instantly connect site changes to real performance movement, and show stakeholders clearer evidence of what worked.
We’re offering an extended 45-day free trial so you can fully explore the new experience.
The Fantasy: “We Just Need Better SEO (or AI)”
I get it. On paper, the logic checks out. Sales are flat (or dropping), your reviews are sliding in the wrong direction, and your core product is getting squeezed by the next shiny thing in your space. You run the math and realize you have maybe three months to turn this around before you start laying people off, talking to a bankruptcy attorney, or closing the doors.
None of that is fun. It sucks. As an entrepreneur myself, I genuinely feel for these owners. Sometimes you are living with the consequences of your own bad decisions. Other times, you really did get dealt a bad hand. And for the record, any business owner who says luck does not play a role in success probably has not built much of anything yet.
Here is where the logic goes off the rails.
“I need more sales” turns into “I need more traffic to my site,” which turns into “I cannot afford pay-per-click,” which turns into “let us go all in on SEO” or, even worse, “Let us fix it with AI optimization.”
If you are already in that kind of panic, SEO is not going to save your business. AI definitely is not going to save it. The harsh truth is that you almost always have deeper, more fundamental problems that need to be fixed long before you worry about rankings or riding the AI train.
SEO and AI Only Amplify What You Already Are
I get why people reach for SEO or AI when things feel dire. On the surface, it sounds logical. The problem is that there are plenty of SEOs and “AI consultants” who will gladly take your $500, $5,000, or $50,000 knowing full well they will not turn your business around.
They might get you to rank. That is a very big might. But even if they succeed, that still will not save you.
You need to internalize this: SEO can capture awareness, generate clicks, and even drive leads, but it cannot:
Fix a weak offer
Make slow support teams faster
Solve product–market misfit
If any of those are true for your business, more traffic is not a lifeline. It is an accelerant. SEO or AI will push more people into a broken experience, which usually means you sink faster, not slower.
SEO does not hide your problems. It shines a spotlight on them. Let us walk through two examples.
1. Jenny’s Watch & Jewelry Emporium
Situation:
Jenny sells decent products, but her customer service is awful. Calls go unanswered, emails pile up, and her Google rating sits at 3.1 with angry reviews stacking up.
“Successful” SEO Result:
She hires an SEO, rankings improve, traffic and sales increase. But nothing changes operationally. Returns triple, negative reviews flood in, and her rating drops to 2.5.
End Result:
On paper, SEO looks like a win. In reality, it just shines a brighter light on a broken experience. The volume of complaints and chargebacks becomes so overwhelming that shutting down feels like the only way to end the pain.
2. John’s Entrepreneurial Consulting
Situation:
John cashes out from his old company, does not really need the money, and launches a consulting brand. He crowns himself an entrepreneurial guru and cherry-picks a few flattering clients while keeping life easy. The real itch he wants to scratch now is ego and status: bigger audiences, more praise, more people listening to him.
“Successful” SEO Result:
He hires an SEO, starts ranking, shows up in AI answers, and the leads fly in. He packs his calendar with workshops and talks, stops doing real work, and recycles the same frameworks and stories for everyone.
End Result:
SEO does exactly what it is supposed to do and captures demand for its services. But because the substance is weak, word spreads, attendance drops, and invitations dry up. John quietly “retires after a successful exit” and pivots to posting motivational threads while former clients deal with the fallout.
In both cases, SEO worked.
It amplified what was already there.
The problem is that what already existed was not good enough.
If It Isn’t Expensive, Time-Consuming, or High Friction, It Probably Won’t Work
Most “SEO problems” are not real SEO problems. They are problems because business leaders want to use SEO as an “easy button”.
… And sales folks love to take advantage of this. You know the story:
You are pitched a $99 tool that promises hands-off SEO
You are told one-click AI content will dominate search
You meet an agency that guarantees rankings without ever talking about your product, UX, or positioning
It all sounds amazing because it asks nothing of you. No tradeoffs. No real cost. No discomfort.
The reality is that anything capable of generating real revenue is going to feel heavy. Sustainable growth comes from things like:
Deep research and strategy, not another templated audit PDF
Content that requires expertise, interviews, editing, and real opinions
Technical fixes that need engineering time and prioritization over someone else’s pet feature
That is “burdensome” because it touches the messy parts of the business. It looks like tightening operations, fixing support, killing unprofitable products, and admitting your ICP is smaller than your ego wants.
When SEO (or AI) Actually Makes Sense
Let me be clear. I am (obviously, I hope) not anti SEO or anti-AI. I am anti “fix my broken business with a traffic firehose.”
SEO and AI can help you grow, but a few things must be true:
You have a product people actually like and come back to
Your reviews/ratings are at least trending in the right direction
You are getting some word of mouth or repeat business already
If those boxes are not checked, you do not need more visitors. You need to fix what happens after someone finds you.
Before you ask for “more traffic,” fix the stuff that hurts:
Service: response times, support quality, and refund process
Product: feature gaps, quality issues, misaligned expectations
Offer: clear positioning, transparent pricing, strong value add.
Only once your foundation is solid, then SEO and AI make sense.
If your current SEO plan feels light, quick, and friction-free, it is almost certainly not strong enough to generate significant revenue. It might generate reports. It might even nudge a few rankings.
The work that actually compounds, the work that builds long-lasting brands and protects you when algorithms shift, usually feels expensive and painful up front.
Fix the product, service, and offer first. Then we can talk about SEO and AI.
Another spot on piece from Nick 🔥
“SEO does not hide your problems. It shines a spotlight on them.” — so true. It’s about time brands & business owners realise that SEO cannot magically fix shitty product or poor service.
Brutal but necessary truth here. The "SEO only amplifies what you already are" framing is perfectly on point. Reminds me of businesses asking for content marketing to fix poor product-market fit, same fundamental misunderstanding. If anything the Jenny's Watch exmaple should be required reading before any SEO engagement, because expecting rankings to cover for ops failurs is basically paying to speed up failure.