Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been a buzzword and key concept in website development for several years. Anyone creating a new website is urged to follow SEO guidelines, to pick the right tags and design their site for Google friendliness, all in an effort to attract organic search traffic by being at the top of the Google rankings for particular keywords. For example, a site that sells women’s fashions wants to appear on the first page of Google search results for “women’s clothes”. Companies spend thousands of dollars tuning their websites, soliciting backlinks to boost their site’s credibility within Google, and adding filler copy to produce more keyword-rich content.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this – but in the arms race of website promotion, SEO is the equivalent of rifles and hand grenades. It’s useful, you certainly need it – but it isn’t going to win the war for you. The other side has rifles and hand grenades, too. Even Somali pirates can afford rifles and hand grenades. There is little or no “edge” to be gained by having a slightly better rifle or somewhat more hand grenades than your competition – you’re using basically the same tools to fight for the same ground. You can’t NOT do it, because that would give your competition an advantage over you, but it isn’t going to be enough to win.

To win, you have to focus on something other than impressing the Google algorithm and attracting large quantities of essentially random traffic. To win, you have to focus on providing your customers with something that they can’t get in other places.

Companies hate hearing this, because providing unique value is HARD. Everyone wants to think they have a unique value proposition – but the hard truth is, most companies don’t. Sears isn’t doing anything that Macy’s isn’t doing. One oil-change chain is much like another.

Many companies start out providing unique value, because they were created in order to exploit some hole in the market. If nobody is selling left-handed widgets in Denver, then my left-handed widget shop, just by existing, has a unique value proposition (UVP): “We sell left-handed widgets in Denver, and nobody else does that.” The problem with this is that detecting a new niche is a one-off process: once someone starts to successfully fill a niche, other entrepreneurs will see the business possibilities and move into the marketplace. It won’t be long until Wal-Mart starts carrying left-handed widgets in their Denver stores, once they see that there is in fact a market for that – and then my unique value proposition goes “poof”.

So not only does your company need a UVP, it needs to be aware that the UVP must be dynamic and adaptable, not a one-time decision or discovery. Market conditions change, competitors enter, technologies shift – and your company and its mission have to be able to adapt as well. When Wal-Mart starts selling widgets, I have to find something new to add – and ideally, something that will be hard for Wal-Mart to duplicate. Perhaps I could start compiling performance data on all the left-handed widget models on the market, and publish that data in my shop but not online – so that people who come into Bob’s Widget World have better information than people going to Wal-Mart. Now my UVP is “We sell left-handed widgets in Denver with transparent performance information so that our customers always get the best widget.” Wal-Mart will have a hard time matching that expertise – but if they do, I have to be ready to take another step, continually innovating and finding ways to provide more value to my customers.

When it comes to websites, the bottom line is very simple: providing unique value to the people who use your site is where you can find an edge over your competition. You must invest in SEO in order to stay in the game; you must invest in providing value to customers in order to win it.