The reality for a pure internet play is that search traffic is somewhat of a life-support system–especially near the beginning of the buinsess’ life. When you grow to a certain point, you could lose that search traffic and not go under.

I guess you’ll have to forgive me for being a little dramatic, but if you have ever known someone who suddenly sinks in or disappears from Google’s search rankings overnight, and seen the impact that has on visits and sales… it’s not pretty.

This is one of the reasons why backlinks are so important, because no matter what Google does, they can’t erase the existence of those links.

Thanks for commenting!

Looked at for those who only ever arrive at a new website after using google, this is correct. However the reality is that people arrive at a website via many means. e.g. Many directly from a website address off a business card, street sign, brochure, radio, TV, telemarketing, networking event, newspaper article, magazine advertising, Google adwords, email, online article, blog commenting, forum, affiliate link, etc. The list goes on and on. Yes, the SEO stuff is in the top 5 things to do after a new site is built, but NOT AT THE TOP of my list.

Why? After an examination of all mine and other designers new client website stats over the last year, we’ve discovered that on average, only a third of people seem to arrive at the site for the first time via Google or other search engine. Independent firm Forester Research came to similar conclusions in extensive studies over several years.

One figure put out there by one notable high traffic site put the figure at a tiny 8%! I guess it just depends upon the market you’re working with, how long you’ve been online, and the product or service you’re selling.

Conversely, there will undoubtedly be products and markets where 80-90% of their traffic and sales initiates from a search (many in the popular info marketing and industry). However these are not your ‘average’ corporate or small business operation that desperately needs more, better qualified traffic.

However having made my point, I still do all I can to optimize my site(s) for search engines and Google. Much of my time is spent using the Google webmaster tools along with other ideas from sites like http://www.websitegrader.com

However I also know that getting a good Google ranking, SEO strategy etc is but one aspect in achieving traffic and sales. I still need to devote the other 75% of my traffic-building time, effort and money into other things beyond SEO…

I think for the average business, your statement just needs reworking. e.g. “if you don’t appear in search, you could lose around 33% of your traffic” or “Good SEO could increase your traffic by up to 50%” etc…

Either way, you’re hardly dead - Just not fully optimized…

@Robert - I don’t know what we’re saviors, of, exactly. This whole nofollow thing is actually a big mess of Google’s creation. Nofollow is not part of the official HTML specification, it is a proprietary attribute Google invented. They have basically forced the entire internet to deal with it. Frankly, I think it sucks, but what can we do?