Doing it without SEO
Facebook is the ultimate success story of the last couple of years. The company that spread through colleges like wildfire without ever relying on SEO is now reported to be worth around $10 billion.
I like to think of Facebook whenever somebody seems to be obsessing about ranking number 1 for a particular keyword just for the sake of it. Sometimes the web isn’t just about rankings its about whether you can create a site thats remarkable enough to build an audience without Google.
Imagine if Amazon was banned from Google tomorrow or if it only ranked for searches with the word “Amazon” in them. Would they lose much money? I expect traffic would fall dramatically but revenue would still be enough to keep the business going.
Facebook’s astronomical valuation puts a $232 value on the heads of each one of the 43 million users. Did any of these users find Facebook via Google? How much will Facebooks user base increase when they start to let search engines index 43 million profile pages?
Given a $232 budget for user acquisition I’m pretty sure SEO would produce some great results but would it beat Facebook style viral marketing? I doubt it.
For search engine optimisation to succeed you need to have an audience that is actively looking for something. With viral marketing you just need to have an audience.
