SEO is the best acquisition channel for some businesses and a waste of a year for others. The difference is knowable in advance, and it is worth knowing before you commit.
What it is good at
- Capturing people already looking for what you sell, at the moment they want it.
- Compounding: a page that ranks keeps earning without ongoing spend.
- Trust, because organic results carry credibility that ads do not.
- Local intent, where "near me" searches convert extremely well.
What it is bad at
- Speed. Six to twelve months to meaningful traffic is normal, not pessimistic.
- Creating demand for something nobody is searching for yet.
- Certainty. You are optimizing against a system you do not control and cannot see.
- Very competitive commercial terms, where incumbents have years of accumulated links.
Does anyone search for what you do?
This is the first question and most people skip it. If your service has genuine search volume with buying intent — "emergency plumber", "bookkeeping for restaurants" — SEO can carry a business. If you sell something novel that people do not have a name for yet, they cannot search for it, and content will not fix that.
The honest cost
SEO is not free. It costs consistent time over months, and time is your most expensive resource. A realistic plan is a few hours a week for a year, not a burst of activity in January.
Try it
Search for the three terms you would most want to rank for. Look at who occupies the first page and be honest about whether you can produce something better than what is there.