In this episode of The Simple and Smart SEO Show, Crystal Waddell revisits part one of her conversation with Andy Holland about performance SEO...
the kind of SEO that focuses on sales, revenue, and meaningful business growth instead of vanity traffic.
Andy breaks down why chasing massive traffic numbers can be misleading, especially when that traffic does not convert into revenue. He shares how bottom-of-funnel, buyer-intent pages can create real business impact, even when they do not bring huge traffic spikes. The big takeaway? SEO should help brands capture people who are ready to buy — not just attract people who are casually browsing.
If you have ever wondered why your traffic is growing but your sales are not, this episode will help you rethink what SEO success should actually look like.
Key Takeaways
1. Performance SEO is about sales, not traffic
Andy explains that performance SEO is focused on helping brands increase turnover and capture sales. Traffic graphs are interesting, but they do not tell the whole story if revenue is not growing.
2. Not all traffic is valuable
A website can attract hundreds of thousands of visitors and still fail to create meaningful business results. Andy gives the example of content that brings in massive traffic but attracts people who are nowhere near buying the actual product or service.
3. Bottom-of-funnel content can be more profitable
Instead of focusing only on top-of-funnel informational content, Andy shares how commercially focused pages with high purchase intent can dramatically increase revenue, even with very small traffic gains.
4. Organic search helps capture today’s buyers
SEO works best when it helps your brand show up when people are already in buying mode. Andy compares search to a supermarket aisle: people are browsing, comparing, and deciding what to put in their basket.
5. SEO creates small but powerful nudges
Andy describes SEO as a way to create online nudges that influence buyers at the moment they are deciding. Ranking organically gives your brand a chance to be part of that decision without paying for every click.
Episode Highlights
- “Performance SEO is ultimately about turnover.”
- “Traffic has to be meaningful, not meaningless.”
- “Go do me a strategy that makes me money, not traffic.”
Listener Action Items
- Audit your traffic: Look at your highest-traffic pages and ask: are these visitors likely to buy?
- Identify buyer-intent pages: Find the pages, products, or services that people visit when they are closer to making a decision.
- Stop chasing vanity metrics: Measure SEO by revenue, leads, conversions, and business impact — not just clicks.
- Create better nudges: Improve your product pages, service pages, comparison content, and purchase-intent content so buyers have a reason to choose you.
- Build SEO around profit: Focus your strategy on pages that support sales, not just pages that look good in a traffic report.
Text me your questions or comments!
Hey, Shopify store owners! (Especially if you're selling on Etsy, too!)
Here's a quick question: Are people actually finding your products on Google?
If SEO feels confusing, overwhelming, or like something you'll "get to later", this is for you.
I'm hosting a free, seven day Shopify SEO challenge that breaks it down into simple, doable steps.
No tech headaches, no fluff. Join us at
Hey, Shopify store owners! (Especially if you're selling on Etsy, too!)
Here's a quick question: Are people actually finding your products on Google?
If SEO feels confusing, overwhelming, or like something you'll "get to later", this is for you.
I'm hosting a free, seven day Shopify SEO challenge that breaks it down into simple, doable steps.
No tech headaches, no fluff. Join us at
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