The magic of compounding SEO
SEO is not a sprint; it's a marathon—a strategic, long-term investment that builds exponential value over time, much like compound interest in finance.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by the Digital PR agency Search Intelligence and North Star Inbound. See their case studies linked in the newsletter.
Also, sponsored by Weglot, the website translation solution trusted by over 40,000 businesses. Seamlessly integrating with any CMS, Weglot offers SEO-optimized, language-specific URLs and AI-powered translations in 110+ languages, which you can easily review and refine with your team or translators.
Many businesses approach SEO like a direct response marketing channel, expecting immediate returns and quick wins. This mindset is fatally flawed (except in a few unique scenarios.)
While it sounds cliche, SEO is not a sprint; it's a marathon—a strategic, long-term investment that builds exponential value over time, much like compound interest in finance.
SEO is Not Transactional
Early in my career, I experienced via my managers the typical perception that SEO is transactional: invest money, get immediate rankings, and generate instant traffic. In one of my earlier SEO roles, I had a sizeable budget just to spend on links. I spent most of my workday negotiating for new sources of paid links. In hindsight, I would guess at least 50% of that budget was a complete waste of money and went to a cesspool of banned sites that likely didn’t pass any value.
[SPONSORED by Search Intelligence]
We got a free backlink on Reuters for our client 🤩
This is how we've done it:
✅ We've seen the hype about the new social media BlueSky
✅ We've checked their traffic on Similarweb
✅ Similarweb showed that their traffic rose to 5.7 million on Nov. 16
✅ We put the above insight in a mail and sent it to a journalist from Reuters who we knew would write about this topic, based on a previous relationship with them.
This view of transactional SEO misses the nuanced, cumulative nature of optimization efforts. Unlike PPC, influencer, or social media campaigns, which deliver immediate but fleeting results, SEO operates on an accrual basis, where value compounds incrementally.
Operating under this misconception can be fatal because there’s little room for a transactional and accrual effort to live under the same roof. When businesses initiate an SEO strategy, they often become frustrated by the lack of instant gratification and quit.
Search engines rarely reward overnight changes.
They prioritize what users want, and those signals don’t happen instantly. While there are certainly stories of overnight brand successes in most cases, it’s months and even years of hard work. These elements take time to develop and even more time to be recognized.
Accrual Basis of SEO: How Value Compounds
Think of SEO like planting an orchard, not harvesting a single crop. Your initial efforts might seem minimal, but each action builds upon the previous one, creating a robust ecosystem of digital visibility.
Every blog post, optimized page, and piece of high-quality content you create is like adding a brick to your digital account. Initially, these individual pieces might attract minimal traffic and not drive user value, but over time, they will.
Some of my best-converting pieces of content took months to generate traffic, and I never had high hopes for their performance. Over time, these metrics will change as the value accrues. The content will increase the domain's topical authority—not domain authority, but authority within the business’s domain.
While it may not address a high-value or high-traffic term, the content will still provide another entrance point for users and customers.
This content will also participate in the web of internal linking within a site as it accrues links or just value within the search ecosystem.
Accrual of Links
Backlinks are perhaps the most evident example of SEO's compounding nature and where most companies fall into the transactional pitfalls. Some unscrupulous agencies attempt to sell link efforts on an ongoing basis with the threat that if the campaign ends, the traffic will disappear.
This is false, of course. Each link, if valued by the search engine, and this question is nearly impossible to answer, will provide value semi-permanently regardless of whether more links are obtained.
Links signal credibility to the engines that use them in their algorithms, and I have seen SEO visibility remain even when the links have been removed.
By acting as social proof, links create referral relationships and brand endorsements, leading to even more links. Viewed this way, one link could provide value years later, even if it is eventually removed.
A single exceptional piece of content might take months to attract the links it was designed to attract, but all those months accrue to achieve that eventual goal.
Growth Mindset SEO
Successful SEO requires viewing your digital presence as a long-term asset. Just as investors don't expect immediate returns from stocks, marketers must understand that SEO rewards patience and consistent effort.
Metrics Beyond Immediate Conversion
While direct response channels focus solely on immediate transactions, SEO provides value that can’t always be quantified. SEO visibility accrues to build brand visibility, which goes a long way toward building the type of trust that leads to conversions.
SEO visibility will even drive more value on paid channels. Those channels benefit from retargeting users who came in as a first touch from SEO and increased conversions due to the visibility SEO provides.
Strategic Approach: Treating SEO as a Capital Investment
Consider your SEO efforts as capital expenditure. Each optimization, each piece of content, and each technical improvement is an investment with the potential for substantial future returns. Trying to guarantee a return on every effort might keep you in the analysis paralysis that prevents investment.
SEO requires consistency for success, but due to its accrual nature, you can still benefit even if you only have a budget for a one-off effort.
The Compounding Power of Strategic SEO
SEO is not a cost center or a quick fix—it's a sophisticated, long-term growth strategy. By understanding its accrual-based nature, businesses can transform digital marketing from a transactional activity to a sustainable, value-generating investment.
Patience, persistence, and a strategic mindset are the actual currencies of successful SEO.
Brought to you by North Star Inbound—the sales enablement SEO agency.
Drive High Intent Leads with SEO.
What happens when you combine best-in-class SEO with conversion optimization?
BigRentz's traffic increased by 186% (85k), added 1950 conversions in 12 months.
Self Financial's traffic increased by 50k/month, and added 685 new customers.
Lastly, Secure Data added 1968 phone calls.
North Star Inbound’s SEO strategies earn leads, conversions, and revenue..
Book a call for a free content audit and 10% off any engagement.
Intrigued? [Learn more here]
Great analogy comparing SEO to the compounding benefit of staying in the stock market. I used to compare it to planting perennials over annuals - but you have to be a gardener to get that.
I usually use the stock marke as an analoy; where SEO is investing consistently every month in the S&P 500 and other channels are like day trading, where you bu and sell what's popular. The orchard analogy is much simpler 😂