I was reading something from mi old mucker Dan Horton over on DaveN’s blog where he was giving reign to a bit of speculation about how SEO will fare in the impending recession. It’s an interesting question because of course the last time there was a recession, there wasn’t even such a thing as ‘the internet’ as we know it today. Necessarily, all thoughts about how the market will fare in tough economic times are basically made-up. We have no history to work with.
Ultimately, for all we SEOs like to think that we’re magicians or whatever, we’ve got a business model like anybody else – selling a service. The 6 or 7 years in which SEO has grown up as a service have been years with easy credit and booming business all round so in a sense its value might have been inflated in line with almost every other service industry sector.
So how do I think we’ll fare?
General economics dictates that SEO companies will find it harder to sell their services. Companies are facing shrinking revenues as their customers begin to fear redundancy, can’t get credit or are prioritising saving over spending in general. All service industry companies face losing client work in this kind of situation – SEO is no exception. We might think that it is a core activity for most businesses, but SEO is part of a larger marketing mix.
Pressure from PPC will increase – while PPC has a cost all of its own, businesses can more easily rationalise the results. An SEO campaign in a competitive market that might be looking for results over a 12 month+ timeframe which means preloaded costs. If an online marketing budget runs to £10k, which makes more sense in a tight situation: buying £10,000′s worth of visitors and converting them now, or building something for the long term in the hope that you’re still around to reap the rewards?
“Budget” SEO offerings will sap value from the service - nothing new here in a way, the “£100 SEO” companies are still with us and always will be. Of course, a company facing a squeeze will start to look at pricepoints that much more closer. That huge pricing gap between a good professional service and a low-level spam operation is only ever going to drag prices down rather than up. Will that mean deflation? Hard to tell at this stage, but companies used to pitching a high level are likely to find themselves having to trim their costings to fit an even more competitive market. M&S are closing their Simply Food stores because it’s a premium brand in a budget conscious market and the only people increasing their sales are those cutting prices.
Google will turn up the heat on SEO – Google will never in a million years admit it, but good effective SEO is the nemesis of its primary revenue stream (AdWords). If companies are doing well in the organic rankings, they’re less likely to be spending money on AdWords and Google loses out. In boom times, Google’s been fairly easy about living with this but as economic anxiety grows expect Wikipedia, Google properties, news results and ‘information’ results to get even more exposure than they currently do.
Does this spell the end of SEO?
Does it fuckers like. Marketing (of which SEO is rapidly becoming a function) will always be needed by businesses seeking growth. But there is a strong chance of an industry wide shake-up. Typically, it is people who have moved around in the industry, taking their knowledge with them. With the relatively small size of SEO companies on the whole that means a pretty incestuous little scene where personality is king. Now that the business end of things is looking that bit more serious, expect bigger companies to seek acquisitions – snuffing out competitors and taking their business and expertise in one fell swoop.
The implications of this? Well I’m rampantly speculating here, but it might have interesting implications for the free-wheeling, knowledge-sharing, community feel that has characterised SEO to date. When the money begins to tighten the corporate veil of silence may well descend once more, leaving the freelancers and solo-operators to dominate the online conversation space.
The really big question here is: will I be OK? Well, let’s just say I have a few options up my sleeve, just in case 