Why Strategy Has to Come First
(Before SEO, Websites, Ads, or “That Tool Someone Recommended”)
I’ve been doing this long enough to notice a pattern.
Most businesses don’t come to me asking for strategy.
They come asking for SEO, a new website, ads, or sometimes a specific tool they heard about from a friend, a vendor, or a YouTube video watched at 11:30 at night.
And almost every time, my first thought is the same:
We’re skipping a step.
Not because those things don’t matter — they do — but because without strategy, they’re just motion. Busy work. Expensive motion.
Strategy Is the Part Everyone Wants to Skip
Strategy isn’t flashy.
There’s no dashboard screenshot.
No instant gratification.
Strategy asks uncomfortable questions like:
- Who is this actually for?
- What problem are we solving?
- Why should someone choose you instead of the business two blocks away?
- What has to be true for this to work?
That’s not as fun as launching something. So people skip it.
I get it. I really do.
But after watching businesses burn time and money for years, I can say this with confidence:
Skipping strategy doesn’t save time — it guarantees rework.
The “New Website Will Fix It” Myth
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard:
“Our website is old. Once we rebuild it, everything else will fall into place.”
Sometimes it’s true.
Most of the time, it’s not.
A new website without strategy is just a better-looking version of the same confusion. It might load faster. It might look cleaner. But if the message is unclear, the structure is wrong, or the offer doesn’t resonate, nothing changes.
SEO struggles. Ads underperform. Leads are low quality.
And then the website gets blamed.
Tools Don’t Fail — Strategy Does
I like tools. I use a lot of them.
But tools don’t think.
A keyword tool doesn’t know:
- Which leads are actually profitable
- Which services you want more of
- Which customers are a nightmare (and which are gold)
- What your team can realistically support
That context only comes from strategy — from understanding the business, not just the metrics.
When people say:
“SEO didn’t work for us.”
What they usually mean is:
“We applied tactics without a plan.”
Strategy Is What Connects Everything
When strategy comes first, everything downstream gets easier.
SEO knows:
- Which keywords matter and which don’t
- What content is worth building
- What “success” actually looks like
Your website knows:
- What to say first
- What to emphasize
- What to leave out
Ads know:
- Who they’re talking to
- What problem they’re solving
- Where they fit in the bigger picture
Without strategy, every channel operates in isolation. With it, everything reinforces everything else.
A Quick Story From the Real World
I once worked with a business that wanted aggressive SEO growth. Rankings, traffic, the whole thing.
But during strategy conversations, it became clear:
- Their highest-margin service wasn’t even mentioned prominently
- Their team was overwhelmed with low-quality inquiries
- Their best customers all came from a very specific use case — not the broad keywords they were chasing
So instead of “doing more SEO,” we did less — on purpose.
We narrowed focus.
We filtered traffic.
We changed messaging.
Traffic went down.
Revenue went up.
That doesn’t happen without strategy.
Strategy Is About Saying “No” Early
This part surprises people.
Good strategy isn’t about doing more.
It’s about deciding what not to do.
Not every keyword is worth ranking for.
Not every lead is a good lead.
Not every service deserves equal attention.
Strategy gives you permission to stop chasing everything and start building something intentional.
Why This Matters Even More Now (AI Changed the Game)
Search used to be about visibility.
Now it’s about trust.
AI platforms don’t just rank pages — they decide who gets cited. They summarize. They recommend. They collapse options.
If your business doesn’t have a clear point of view, a clear message, and a clear position, AI has nothing to anchor to.
Strategy is what makes your expertise legible — not just to people, but to machines.
What Strategy Actually Looks Like (In Practice)
Strategy isn’t a 40-page deck that lives in a folder.
It’s clarity on:
- Who you help best
- What problems you solve better than most
- What success looks like for you, not for Google
- What role SEO, content, ads, and your website play together
When we start there, execution becomes obvious.
The Bottom Line
SEO matters.
Websites matter.
Ads matter.
But none of them work in isolation — and none of them should come first.
Strategy is the filter that turns effort into results.
Everything else is just noise without it.
And yes — it takes a little more thinking up front.
But it saves years of frustration on the back end.