Is SEO legitimate?
Yes. SEO (search engine optimization) helps your Charlotte-based customers find your business. Unfortunately, some businesses mistakenly view it as magical or too complicated, leading them to hire SEO companies without asking questions or ensuring results. If your SEO company focuses on business growth, SEO is a legitimate way to find new customers.
Is it worth paying an SEO company?
If you don’t have time to keep up with SEO changes or update your website, hiring an SEO company is worthwhile. However, treating marketing as a mere cost instead of an investment can lead to poor results. View SEO as an investment and hold your company accountable for real growth to make it worthwhile.
Why is SEO so expensive?
There are several factors that drive the expense of an SEO campaign:
- Expertise costs money. As with most things, quality in SEO comes at a premium. Skimping on expertise is a reliable way to waste your business’s resources.
- SEO tools are costly. Free resources like Google Analytics and Google Search Console help, but advanced tools may be essential to compete. You can individually invest in these or benefit from an SEO company distributing costs across clients. Sometimes, investing in robust SEO tools is unavoidable.
- Website content is often expensive. Competing in search requires clear communication with your customers about what you offer. Cutting corners—such as having a relative or an AI create content—lacks strategic depth and experience, causing Google to disregard your content and wasting time and resources. Instead, hire an SEO company that employs skilled human writers who can understand your business and connect with your customers.
Of course, you can always do SEO yourself. However, SEO is expensive because it costs time- whether yours or someone else's.
Is SEO dead or evolving in 2026?
While we’re thinking about AI, is it going to kill off SEO? Is it even worth investing in SEO if everyone (including Google) is moving towards LLMs (learned language models) to answer questions your customers are asking?
Yes- and this is why:
- Despite all the hype, consumers are slowly adopting AI. The data is clear: a fraction of consumers are using AI over a traditional Google search. Don’t give up on what’s working now to prepare for an uncertain future.
- Optimizing for AI or SEO requires the same fundamentals. Even if Google becomes fully AI-driven, the steps to succeed in SEO mirror those favored by AI systems. Thus, if SEO fades, your investment in it still positions you well in an AI-led landscape.
- SEO constantly evolves. Tactics that succeeded years ago rarely work now. Change is the sole constant. An experienced SEO company pivots rapidly and, more critically, recognizes enduring fundamentals amid industry speculation. Interestingly, despite persistent rumors, most core principles remain unchanged. Seasoned SEOs understand this distinction.
So, SEO may be changing, but it’s not dead in 2026- and likely won’t be for a while.
Can ChatGPT do SEO?
Using AI for your SEO may seem convenient, but it can hurt you later by either wasting your time or costing you opportunities from an actual SEO campaign.
For example, if you’ve used ChatGPT, you know that its answers can be inaccurate, especially on topics you know well. If you don’t already understand SEO, it can be hard to judge whether AI-generated advice is actually correct or helpful.
Also, tools like ChatGPT don’t have insider knowledge on how to rank in Google. Even Google’s own AI, like Gemini, does not reveal the secret to ranking, as Google earns revenue from paid ads, not organic search. Their interests may not align with making SEO easy for businesses.