No matter how you look at it, there are only two ways to achieve decent rankings in the search engines – by chance or by optimisation.

It is totally possible that your site accidentally meets the needs of the search engine’s algorithm for your targeted keywords and phrases.  If you have decent content, your site isorganised and well-structured, and you have people linking to you because they like you, your site, and your content then you may be doing pretty well on your own. 

So when people say that SEO is irrelevant, this is what they are referring to – the fact that some people out there are getting rankings without optimisation.  But they are the lucky ones.  The fact is, that very few websites are without a number of impediments to their search engine rankings..  these may be minor or they may require a complete overhaul – but like with the national lottery, although it is true that "anyone can win" – the reality is that only a handful get lucky.

Once you have decided that you don’t want to risk your business on chance, then optimisation is the only way forward – you just need to decide how you will approach it.  Whether you do this yourself or hire someone, SEO is still a process that is required to ensure that your website  gets the ranking results that you desire.   With all the debate about SEO and search marketing in general, I think it is important to embrace the notion that you really only have two choices – chance it or optimise it.

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