Here’s Why You Need SEO
- Chris Butera
- Nov 9, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: Nov 9, 2025
SEO is a must.
If you're a business owner, you know this. That being said, some of you are still in denial about it.
That’s OK. When I mention that I offer SEO services as part of my voice over business, I see and hear excuses and arguments all the time about why SEO is irrelevant, including but not limited to:
“I don’t need SEO.”
“SEO doesn’t work.”
“I’m still making money without it.”
“My coach or consultant said I don’t need it.”
“I know someone who tried it in 2016 and said not to bother.”
“I tried SEO. It didn’t do anything.”
“Who cares? AI is taking over anyway.”
"SEO is too expensive."
“I can just pay my way through Google."
“SEO is dead. I’m good.”
You’re wrong, but that’s OK, too. People have been calling SEO a scam FOREVER. Those same people have also been saying that SEO is dead since the 90s.
Table of Contents
Send me an email if you finally want to pull the trigger on your SEO marketing strategy!
Chris, Why Are You Being Such a Douche?
My cadence is normally very friendly, but at the time of this writing, I’ve been stuck in a Detroit airport for six and a half hours thanks to a government shutdown and my damn luck (the flight is less than two). I’m pissed off, so that’s going to come across in my writing. Maybe that’s the best way to speak this truth.
Either way, this is a voice over blog coming from a voice actor who’s also a savvy content and SEO marketer. It’s an experiment in blogging. If it performs well, my future posts might turn up the snark and shut off the filter. If anything, I’m doing it for science.
That said, I’ve been putting this article off for months, so let’s call this a “happy accident.”
Chris, Why Should I Trust You to Know Anything About SEO?
Good question, sir, madam, or pronoun of choice. You shouldn’t trust me off the bat because I said so.
I’ve been doing content for more than 10 years, first as a journalist, then as a marketing guy. I’ve been doing SEO for 4 years as of this writing.
That said, I haven’t seen or done it all, but here’s what I have done for businesses by improving their SEO:
Beat organic session forecasts by 89.5%.
Improve organic sessions by 68% YoY.
Increase impressions by 116.9% YoY.
Raise LTV/revenue by 37.2% YOY (approx. $500k).
Grow LTV/revenue 20% YoY (approx. $1.5M).
Seeing a bunch of voice actors suddenly spew nonsense about what "good SEO" is over the past six months because AI is making SEO seem sexy for the first time in history is getting stuck in my craw, so I'm doing something about it.
That's why I'm writing about SEO. I'm in the soup every day. Please stop telling people it's all about the keywords. It hasn't EVER been a keyword-only industry.
Now that I’ve hopefully shown you that I can walk the walk, I’m going to explain exactly why SEO is so important for every business today, the way you need to hear it.
In other words, to para and also quasi-rephrase U-God’s dope lyrics in the Wu-Tang Clan masterpiece “Da Mystery of Chessboxin:” I'ma give it to ya raw with some trivia (but not like cocaine straight from Bolivia. Drugs are bad).
Now that you’ve been properly warned, let’s start with the necessity of visibility.
The Visibility Game
In today’s Search landscape, it starts with visibility. It’s about being seen. It’s not about having the best product. It’s not about having the fanciest website. It’s not even about being good at your job.
People do not shop the way they used to. They don’t have the time or attention spans. They wanted it months ago. They also want instant gratification.
Everything is about the quick hit to keep that 24-hour dopamine drip going like a perpetual IV of happy juice straight to the brain.
They don’t want to click on your amazing content because they just want the information. They don’t care where it comes from.
People just want their questions answered.
If they’re looking for a product to buy, then maybe they’ll click on your page. Maybe they’ll buy it from you. Maybe they won’t even buy that thing they thought they wanted.
They will most likely buy it from a competitor they know or have seen a million times. Not because they’re good, but because they are becoming increasingly more aware of the person or brand (if you made a sale this way, bully for you, sir, madam, or other pronoun of choice).
People don’t want to click unless they absolutely have to. If they don’t know about you, you don’t exist (even though you do).
To Win At Search, You Need to Prove That You DO Exist
Think of the classic M&Ms Christmas commercial that debunked the myth that Santa Claus and M&Ms were lies your parents told you so you’d be good all year (aka. Shut up and sit still for a damn minute so I can hear myself think and question all of my life’s choices).
The red and yellow M&Ms (let’s call them Classic and Peanut, voiced by the incomparable Billy West and J.K. Simmons) are wandering through a warm Christmas house decorated to the gills with tidings of holiday cheer. Not only are they NOT MELTING next to a roaring fire or the candle Classic just burned his glove on, they’re arguing about whether Santa Claus would like red and green M&Ms.
Once Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick appears, chaos ensues. Stunned, ALL THREE OF THEM LOOK AT EACH OTHER IN DISBELIEF BECAUSE THEY CAN SEE THE REAL THING IN FRONT OF THEM. Santa and Classic, who both turned out to be skeptical of each other's existence, both faint in shock. Peanut looks over at Santa and checks to see if he’s still alive. He doesn’t seem to care much for Classic, but hey, maybe Classic’s an asshole.
Assuming Classic and Santa wake up, you know damn well they are going to be on each other’s lists. Peanut will be on his best behavior every year for the rest of his chocolatey goodness. Maybe one day, they’ll put this traumatic moment behind them, strike up a friendship, and tour each other’s factories.
In the meantime, Santa will tell Mrs. Claus, the elves, and the reindeer what the hell just happened. Maybe Mrs. Claus suggests that Santa needs professional help and refers him to the North Pole’s most trusted therapist, the charming snowman who can carry a friendly tune and tell a good story thanks to the buttery voice of Burl Ives.
Maybe this happens, maybe it doesn’t. We’ll never know, as we never got a commercial or Christmas special detailing the aftermath. It’s my article, and I’ll do as I damn well please.
That being said, this strange quirk of visibility means two things:
The entire North Pole is either buying or avoiding M&Ms forever.
EVERY LIVING M&M IN THIS ODDLY-SHARED UNIVERSE IS TERRIFIED OF SANTA.
That’s why visibility matters. It’s why you need to show up in Search. Here’s why SEO is important.
OK, fine, I’ll show you the damn commercial (Chekhov used a gun. I’m using Big Candy).
A Quick Look at the Evolution of Search Engine Optimization
SEO used to be easy. You used to just need a lot of backlinks, keywords, and maybe an awful listicle for a customer to find you and buy your product. People got cute and hacky, so spam flooded the internet. Keyword stuffing and buying backlinks en masse were a big thing. You could also pay your way up the rankings (more on that later).
Eventually, people using bad SEO tactics got rightfully penalized, and Search evolved toward best practices that rewarded Expertise, Authority, and Trust, formerly known as the E-A-T model.
With the rise of AI Search, another E has been added for Experience, making the acronym E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and shifting what good SEO means.
In an AI-centric world, the user is changing. Behavior is changing.
Content needs to be helpful and answer questions. Content also needs to be structured so that you show up in AI Overviews and LLMS.
Keywords have grown from a focus on one to two words to long-tail queries, and is now turning into conversational language using complete sentences. Keywords have become more like key phrases — and in extreme cases, full sentences or paragraphs — that have to match intent (great, thanks to those em dashes, everyone reading this article now thinks it was written by AI).
Your ranking position no longer matters. Paid Search strategies have been messing up organic rankings for a while, but people got wise and learned to ignore the ads in favor of clicking on one or all of the first three articles that appeared.
Even that doesn’t work anymore.
Instead of 10 blue links and some sponsored stuff, people first get shown an AI Overview (fka. Featured Snippets) or whatever the LLM feeds them. If it gives a “good enough” answer to their question, they move on. They will only click if they see an exact answer to their exact question, and even that doesn’t guarantee a sale.
A sale depends on whether or not they believe the business they clicked on is telling the truth.
TLDR: It’s about trust (it’s about us, babe).
How AI Search Works in a Nutshell
Here’s a quick and basic example of how Search works at the time of this writing (November 2025). It might change in 3-6 months. That’s how fast the landscape is shifting.
People are not searching for doctors. At the very least, they want an “ear, nose, and throat doctor near me” so that they can figure out why the hell they keep coughing in July.
At the most, they are searching for an “ear, nose, and throat doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, who can help me figure out why the hell I keep coughing in July. I hate this. Please make it stop.”
Search will see this. The AI Overview, ChatGPT, or some other search engine or LLM will give the user one or several responses that try to answer their query, which may include:
Ear, nose, and throat doctors in Madison, Wisconsin.
Listicles of the “best” ear, nose, and throat doctors in Madison, Wisconsin (the doctor’s office that wrote the article will magically rank #1 every time).
Articles trying to explain why they might be coughing.
Articles about July weather and allergies in Madison, Wisconsin.
Articles describing Hell and its origins.
None of these things means that the user will click on a result or visit a doctor (the sale). At the very least, they may think about going to church on Sunday (they won't).
Let’s be real: They’re going to skim the AI Overview, decide they want M&Ms, and go to the closest grocery store, bodega, deli, or 7-Eleven (it all goes back to Big Candy. Follow the money).
For the sake of this example, suppose an ear, nose, and throat doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, who happens to be one hell of an SEO, notices an uptick in patients with coughing fits in July.
When looking up this topic, Dr. Kilpatient discovers this question in their search results. Based on this query, they write a high-quality, well-structured, and very helpful article titled “Why the Hell Are You Coughing in July Here in Beautiful Madison, Wisconsin?”
The user will not only see this article first when they search, but they will absolutely click on this every single time. They will then visit this doctor, even if this doctor is the worst doctor in Madison, Wisconsin.
How and Why Intent-Based SEO Works
Are you wondering how Dr. Kilpatient’s SEO tactics landed the client? Let’s break that down using the SEO structure that AI Overviews and LLMs like.
Here’s how that happened:
The user had a problem and typed in a very specific query into a search engine or LLM.
This doctor‘s article answered the user’s question to the letter.
Search pulled up the doctor’s article due to its relevance.
That made the user aware of the doctor.
The user clicked.
The user read the article.
The user believed the doctor could help them.
That built trust.
That trust led to a doctor’s visit (the sale).
To be fair, the user may have considered that the doctor could be a total quack, but that might not have mattered. They went to that ear, nose, and throat doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, anyway.
Here’s why that happened:
The doctor answered their question.
The doctor got seen.
The user felt seen and heard.
The doctor got seen again (in person and/or virtually).
The doctor put all four of their children through college at Ivy League schools.
TLDR: The doctor won in Search, regardless of their qualifications. The doctor also took the user’s health insurance plan, but that’s another story for someone else’s blog (hopefully someone who works in insurance).
The Bare Minimum SEO Tactics You Need to Use Today
Are there hacky tactics for this zero-click AI-driven search world? Of course there are. Tons of places are doing “Best X” articles that are CONVENIENTLY ranking themselves at #1. That doesn’t work.
Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive used this very example in his presentation at MozCon this past week, and also said it best. To paraphrase, if you are ranking yourself #1 in your own “Best X” listicle, no one will believe you.
To win at Search, you need to be seen and believed to be chosen.
At the bare minimum, website and content optimization means you must be able to provide the following:
Helpful information that answers questions and builds trust.
Information that is targeted for user intent (what the user wants to do and what they are thinking about when it comes to your product or service).
Well-structured information so that AI finds you (bulleted lists, tables, proper header tagging, alt text for your images, bite-sized paragraphs that can easily be read, FAQs).
If you want to win at Search, you must remember the following:
If your site and your content are not optimized, you will not be seen.
If you can’t be seen, you can’t be believed.
If you can’t be seen or believed, you can’t get chosen.
If you don’t get chosen, you don’t make money.
If you don’t make money, you don’t grow.
If you don’t grow, you die.
This is all Big Candy’s fault.
