Why I Treat SEO Like a Reference Question, Not a Marketing Trick

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If you've ever had a YouTube channel, blog, or any other social media, you've definitely heard of the big unknown that drives everyone's abilities to be seen digitally: the algorithm. It seems like this system has become an unseen entity that demands to be catered to lest you fall into digital obscurity. Algorithms have also greatly affected the way people approach SEO (search engine optimization). So naturally, there are thousands of ways to supposedly "game" the system for SEO's sake. But these methods don't work, especially for the long term. The reason is simpler than you might think: SEO is not about marketing. It's about information.

Let me show you with this hypothetical example:

A nonprofit called Welcome Home helps people with disabilities navigate the process of finding accessible housing. Its staff have years of expertise and the organization has created housing guides, accessibility checklists, articles about tenant rights, and resources for finding accessible apartments. They've also launched a more modernized logo and branding kit. But their website uses vague page titles, the most important resources are buried in several clicks deep, and their content doesn't use the language people actually type into Google.

When someone searches “apartments for wheelchair users,” or “house with walk-in tub,” Welcome Home's resources appear so far down the search results that few people ever see them. Instead, people find commercial apartment sites, competing organizations, and confusing government information about ADA laws.

Even though they chose to launch a website to increase their reach, Welcome Home ends up receiving minimal website visitors, fewer inquiries from people looking for help, and less referrals and partnerships. The frustrating thing is that this isn't happening because Welcome Home's information is poor quality or incorrect. It's happening because the information hasn't been organized in a way that is findable, relevant, and trustworthy for their clients.

Marketing certainly has its place in communicating value, mission, vision, and getting the word out. But marketing tactics without an information science foundation just don't stick.

When I look at a situation like Welcome Home's, I see three different things that I was trained to evaluate in any library collection or reference interaction:

• Discoverability: Just like a cataloged book with the wrong subject fields, Welcome Home's content exists, but search engines can't find it because it isn't indexed properly. Just like that book, the website is sitting on the "shelf" full of real and useful information. However, the people looking for that subject matter will never be able to find it no matter how much they search. It's functionally invisible.
• Relevance: If someone is able to find the website, they aren't following through because it seems to be irrelevant to their need. The information doesn't actually match what they are asking. In learning how to conduct reference interviews, library students are often reminded that the initial question a patron comes to us with is commonly not their actual question. If we simply take their question at face value and give them an answer without digging in deeper, they are likely to leave without their information need being met. In this hypothetical case, Welcome Home may have excellent housing guides, but if they are titled and tagged using clinical language instead of the words real people search, the searcher won't realize that the content is relevant to their situation. Additionally, if Welcome Home answers questions on a surface level without providing a way for the searcher to dive deeper or an easy way to contact them, they often will not reach out.
• Authority/Trust: One of the reasons that Welcome Home's website does not show up high on Google's results is because there is nothing that signals to Google that it is credible enough to act on. In academic libraries, we teach our patrons how to evaluate information based on a variety of criteria, one of which is authority, and that a gold standard marker of authority is peer-reviewed status. In this case, Welcome Home's content has not received Google's "peer-reviewed" designation. Instead, Google probably views it as uncredible noise competing with other more authoritative sites.

For Welcome Home, solving these three problems doesn't require new content, logo, or branding. It requires organizing what they already have.

• Discoverability can be fixed through fixing the site's structure with clear page titles, a real sitemap, proper headings, and a navigation path that doesn't bury important information deeply. The site's structure also needs to use accessibility standards not just for a small group of users, but to enhance and uplift the entire site. All of this makes it easier for Google, and other search engines, to crawl.
• Relevance can be improved by doing keyword research the way I'd do a reference interview: finding out what real people actually type when they need this help, like "house with walk-in tub," and building content around that language instead of the language Welcome Home uses internally.
• Authority/Trust is earned by providing signals that tell Google (and users) that this information can be trusted. This includes backlinks from housing and disability organizations, citations, and a consistent presence that shows expertise over time.

If you chase algorithm tricks, you'll have to rebuild your SEO strategy every time the algorithm changes because you aren't solving the real problem. Once Welcome Home's resources are properly cataloged, matched to real searcher language, and backed by trustworthy signals, that foundation holds up no matter how the algorithm shifts around it. A well-organized collection stays useful regardless of who's searching it or what tool they're using to search. That's the lens I bring to every SEO project, and it's why I'd rather fix the underlying structure than chase this month's trending trick.

Ready to see where your own information gets lost?

If your website has great content that isn't reaching the people who need it, the problem is probably discoverability, relevance, or authority, not the quality of your work. I offer a free 30-minute video chat to look at where your site's information might be getting stuck. Reach out so we can get to work!

I'll be writing some blog posts more in depth about how the rise of integrated LLMs has affected SEO, so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out!