by The Cleansing Power of a Recession
Every time the economy dips, one question reliably resurfaces: “Will SEO still work?”
The short answer is: It works better than ever.
Since I began working in SEO in 2001, I’ve witnessed multiple economic downturns. And while no one hopes for a recession — people lose jobs, businesses close, families struggle —they are, like it or not, a natural part of economic life.
Recessions are unavoidable. And here’s a blunt truth I’ve learned: for SEO, they’re often the most productive periods.
Because recessions reveal who’s built to last. They act as a kind of market cleansing. When budgets tighten, the first to go are usually businesses without a solid marketing strategy. Companies that haven’t invested in long-term visibility, especially in SEO, often find themselves vulnerable — and many don’t make it.
The economy thrives on competition. In good times, everyone gets a chance, even businesses that lack a strong digital presence. But during a downturn, only those who’ve prepared continue to grow: It’s those with a solid foundation and a discoverable presence online built for years through SEO efforts.
Economic Booms Can Be Deceptive
It’s during economic booms that I hear the most dismissive remarks about SEO.
Some business owners tell me, “We’re doing fine without SEO. We don’t really need it.” I’ve heard this countless times in sales calls, and often, there’s little I can say to change their minds. When the pipeline is full and the phones are ringing, investing in long-term growth doesn’t always feel urgent.
In booming markets, even businesses with weak online visibility manage to somehow survive — sometimes even thrive. But that success is often short lived. It’s not built on strength, it’s built on favorable economic conditions. And when those conditions shift, the cracks begin to show.
What was once “good enough” suddenly isn’t. Without a strong SEO, these businesses are left exposed. And more often than not, they’re the first to fall when the economy slows.
What Really Happens During a Downturn
Over the years, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself.
When the economy shrinks, businesses that never built a strong digital foundation experience steep drops in visibility, traffic, and eventually revenue. Without momentum or discoverability, they fade from the market.
But the story is different for those who have consistently invested in SEO.
When competitors go silent — whether by cutting their budgets or going out of business — there’s less competition for search rankings. That means more visibility, more traffic, and more conversions for the businesses that remain active.
The Costliest Mistake in a Recession
If there’s one consistent mistake I’ve seen across industries during every downturn, it’s this: businesses cutting their SEO budget when they need it most.
It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Revenue dips, and leadership starts looking for places to trim. Marketing somtimes lands first on the chopping block: SEO. Unlike paid ads or outbound campaigns, SEO can be misunderstood because it doesn’t always produce immediate results. It’s quiet, strategic, foundational. And that’s why it’s often undervalued by decision-makers who are focused solely on short-term gains. But here’s the irony. Those who cut SEO in a recession are often sealing their fate.
Because just as their competitors are disappearing from search results, they had a chance to rise. They had the opportunity to claim more digital territory, to attract more organic traffic, and to grow while others faded. Instead, by pulling back, they vanish alongside the businesses that never invested in visibility at all.
As someone who has spent decades in this industry, I’ve seen this mistake play out again and again. It’s frustrating — because we could help them grow. We could help them not just survive the recession, but come out stronger on the other side. But when businesses pull back out of fear, they miss that chance. And we lose the opportunity to do what we do best.
Part of the problem lies in how SEO is perceived. Unlike traditional advertising, its results are gradual, technical, and often invisible to the untrained eye. You can’t see SEO working in the same way you see a billboard or a social media ad campaign.
To understand SEO, you need to understand algorithms, ranking factors, user intent, website architecture, content strategy, and much more. It sits at the intersection of marketing, analytics, IT, and consumer behavior.
That makes it one of the most powerful, but also most misunderstood, disciplines in business today.
In that sense, SEO is closer to engineering or software development: You have to think like a system architect and a market analyst at the same time. And if you don’t live in that world, it’s easy to underestimate SEO’s value.
When Does Growth Actually Happen?
One of the most common questions I get is this:
“I understand that SEO becomes more valuable during a recession — but when will the growth actually happen?”
Here’s the honest answer: not immediately.
Growth begins when the competition begins to crumble.
In every recession, I watch a familiar pattern unfold. First, competitors grow cautious. They freeze marketing budgets, suspend SEO efforts, and scale back content. Then, some go out of business entirely. Their websites go offline. Their listings vanish. Their digital footprint fades.
For clients who’ve stayed consistent with SEO, this is the window where everything starts to shift. The traffic that once belonged to your competitors doesn’t disappear — it gets redistributed. And your site, your content, and your presence begin to absorb it.
We sometimes describe it like digital scavenging.
To maximize SEO performance during a recession, competitor monitoring is recommended. One of the most reliable ways to measure this is through Ranking Distribution Analysis.
Here’s how Ranking Distribution it works:
We identify your top 6-8 competitors and track how much of the search volume across your industry’s most valuable keywords each one captures. This gives you a percentage-based view of who controls what share of organic visibility.
For example, if your business typically holds 20% of the keyword ranking distribution across your core topics, and a competitor drops out or loses momentum, you can expect that share to rise — sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically. We’ve had clients see their distribution jump from 20% to 30%, even 45%.
That’s not just a visibility increase. It can translate directly into doubling revenue. The shift doesn’t always happen in a flash, but once it does, the effects are lasting and substantial.
Recessions Creates the Space for Growth
This is important: A recession doesn’t cause your SEO to succeed. What it does is remove the friction that was previously slowing you down.
The businesses that fall behind or drop out were once splitting the market with you. Once they’re gone, the path to growth is clear — but only if you’ve built the SEO structure to receive it.
That’s why staying invested in SEO during tough times isn’t just a defensive move. It’s the most strategic way to claim space that others are about to leave behind.
