SEO – Zero-sum game explained

A couple of days ago, I used the phrase:

SEO is inherently a zero-sum game

This got picked up in a conversation here about a specific SEO competion, and Knox commented:

That would be hard to explain to the millionaires we’ve created.

I think I’d better explain what I meant by the comment.

A “zero-sum game” is a technical term from economics – it’s a situation where, for every winner, there is a loser.

Two kids arguing about how to share a chocolate bar is zero sum – for every extra ounce that Bobby gets, Billy gets an ounce less.

By comparison, most types of business aren’t zero-sum… If you create a business, then (assuming you’re any good) there’s more wealth into the world as a result. Creating, say, a chip company that turns sand into microprocessors creates more wealth, because it turns low-value resources into high-value resources. (Most people would pay more for a bag of Pentiums than a bag of sand.)

It’s the whole “secret sauce” of the market economy we’ve had in the West for the last 2-300 years that value can be “created” like this.

No-one can create an extra slot on the first page of Google (OK, apart from Larry or Sergey.) So for every person an SEO specialist helps get onto that top page, someone else gets pushed down.

It’s that “Google ranking” that’s zero-sum.

Where SEO stops being zero-sum is in the money it can make. If someone who is better at creating wealth out of clicks gets a good slot on Google, the for the economy as a whole, it’s not zero-sum.

Which leads to the slightly odd conclusion than SEO is good for the world economy, but only if it’s used mainly by good value creators.

So, I have a plea… if you are considering using SEO in your business, then make sure that your business is good at making money from visitors first. It’s not only good for you, it’s good for the world 🙂