There's a lot of craze about getting ranked 1st on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, and it's for a good reason. They get the majority of internet traffic and people use the search engines to find the information they are seeking. While it's crucial that your website is up-to-date with the ever-changing web standards and compliances, SEO is not the sole indicator of you're website's potential success. Aside from SEO, you have to ask yourself, "What is it that people actually seek?" Once you spend some time reflecting upon that question you may or may not come to a realization. I can spend 100's or 1000's of dollars getting to the top of Google, but unless my website is appealing then visitors will surely vanish. It's important to start off on the right foot. Begin with something unique and innovative that will capture those who stumble upon it. I'm not talking about creating a new blog about a niche nobody has ever heard of. I'm saying forget blogs and start developing a website that is useful to people who create blogs. If you do what everyone else is doing then it will soon be washed out. There is no shortcut to success online or success at all for that matter. Which websites are the ones making millions or dollars and receiving the most traffic? Myspace YouTube Google Stumbleupon the list continues... These websites were all innovators, and the only way to make it to the top is to shoot for it. Granted, everybody has to start somewhere and now is a perfect opportunity. I guess what I'm trying to say is SEO isn't anything if your product sucks.
I totally agree with some of your points. You can get people to your website using SEO but end of the day they have to buy products from you (or your affiliate publisher). It's very important to make a 'good' and useful website. Your point about myspace, youtube and stumbleupon making millions of dollar is slightly misplaced, Youtube was not even being monetized much till recently And others are still trying to find methods to make money (myspace has been mildly successful). Isn't twitter just great and getting loads of traffic? But they are not making any money yet.. So one has to keep 3 things in mind. 1. Making a good usable website that people will like 2. Getting it on top of search engines or making it popular enough brand 3. Having methods in place to monetize the traffic without shooing your users away.
It is a really truthful article. It's also important to note that backlinks are probably just as important as content and "uniqueness" as they help determine what keyword queries your site will be ranking for.
I don't necessarily agree with all of this. Of course it would be great if we could all come up with exciting ground breaking websites, but most of us can't do this for one reason or another. That is what is necessary if you want your website to make millions. On the other hand, you can make a very nice living from a generic website. If you can dominate the search engines you can just keep getting new visitors to check out your offerings. You can even do very well without relying on return customers.