A Love Letter to C-Suites Nonetheless Chasing 2013

By Lea Scudamore, Awarded search engine optimization Professional, Aimclear’s Director of search engine optimization

Expensive C-suite, Boardroom, and That-One-Stakeholder-Who-Simply-Googled-Themselves,

We have to discuss. No, not concerning the fonts in your homepage (however sure, we see them). We have to speak about visitors—particularly, the type you’re nonetheless obsessive about in a 2013-kind-of-way. These of you watching your GA dashboard with a venti Starbucks and a dream.

Right here’s the reality:

  • Natural search visitors goes away.
  • It has been for years.
  • You simply didn’t wish to consider it.

And now that we’re standing in a post-March 2025 core replace world, I feel it’s time all of us take a deep breath, pour a glass of actuality, and say it collectively:

“Site visitors isn’t the factor anymore.”

Wait… What?! However We Want Extra Guests!

I do know, I do know. The KPIs in your slide deck nonetheless say, “Improve Natural Periods by 27.45% YoY.” And each time the CEO varieties in a key phrase and your web site isn’t #1, somebody Slacks your search engine optimization prefer it’s DEFCON 1.

Let me hit you with a reality bomb:

Google has been slicing away at natural visibility for over a decade.

Let’s roll tape:

  • Panda kicked off the “content material have to be good” campaign in 2011.
  • Penguin got here in sizzling in 2012 and mentioned, “cease shopping for hyperlinks, you weasels.”
  • Hummingbird (2013) was step one towards Google understanding individuals higher than their very own spouses.
  • Cell-first indexing informed your clunky desktop web site to get within the 2016 time machine and transfer on.
  • Core updates? Nicely, they’re the equal of Google tossing your search engine optimization efforts right into a blender each few months and saying “shock!”

And let’s not neglect:

  • Featured Snippets.
  • Zero-click searches.
  • AI overviews.
  • Infinite scrolling.
  • Google straight-up answering the query earlier than your hyperlink even will get an opportunity to shine.

Natural actual property is shrinking. Site visitors is fragmented. And Google? She’s preserving extra of it for herself like a jealous ex.

So What Do We Do? Cry Into Our Key phrase Reviews?

Nah. We’re SEOs. We’re constructed for change.

Diversify to quora, reddit, youtube, you need more than a website these days.Diversify to quora, reddit, youtube, you need more than a website these days.

(We’ve already cried. In 2016. And 2018. And, okay nice, final month.)

Right here’s the deal:

  • Cease treating visitors as the one metric that issues. (When you’re a shopper of mine, you recognize I’ve informed you, “I’m an search engine optimization who doesn’t care about visitors.”) Gasp. I do know, proper?
  • Begin obsessing over visibility, model alerts, and the way customers work together with the actual property we really do get.
  • Optimize for intent, expertise, and conversions—not simply clicks.
  • Get your model on platforms off Google. YouTube, Reddit, boards, even Pinterest. If it has a search bar, it’s honest sport.

In 2025, search engine optimization isn’t about chasing blue hyperlinks anymore. It’s about being unmissable wherever your viewers hangs out—even when Google isn’t the one sending them.

TL;DR for the Boardroom Crowd:

  • Natural visitors ain’t what it was.
  • Google isn’t “damaged.” It’s simply not your free lead gen fairy anymore.
  • Your search engine optimization isn’t a wizard who can reverse-engineer a Core Replace with sheer willpower.
  • Evolve your expectations. Fashionable search engine optimization is about relevance, belief, and model presence.
  • Let your SEOs be strategic, not scapegoats.
  • Embrace the 2025 search engine optimization mannequin. It’s extra about really producing income than ever earlier than, however you gotta get in the proper mindset.

Closing Thought (And It’s a Hug)

We get it. Metrics matter. Reviews matter. Proving ROI issues.

Nevertheless, chasing visitors for visitors’s sake is like investing in fax machines as a result of they “used to work very well.” search engine optimization just isn’t useless—it’s simply now not taking part in by your 2010 guidelines.

So let’s evolve, collectively. Or, as I prefer to say:

Adapt or be invisible.

And in the event you’re able to cease chasing ghosts and begin proudly owning your digital presence?
You understand the place to search out us.

(Aimclear. Proper right here. Not in your natural visitors report.)

You could find me and the remainder of the Aimclearians on the Zenith Conference on Thursday, April tenth right here in Duluth. Low cost code ZENITHAPPRECIATION takes $100 off the common $299 registration price.

My Name is Lea, I am an SEO, I don't care about traffic and you shouldn't either.My Name is Lea, I am an SEO, I don't care about traffic and you shouldn't either.


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