For many years I believed the same equation as most SEO professionals. More rankings meant more traffic and more traffic meant more success. That formula felt logical and safe. Today I am convinced it was incomplete. SEO cannot be judged only by visibility. It must be judged by business impact.
When I look at projects that only celebrate sessions and positions, I often see the same problem. They are loud but not useful. They attract visitors who will never become customers. That is not growth.
If you calculate only the traffic but forget the revenue, you are ranking for things that are not enough to bring the revenue. This idea changed the way I understand my role.
Traffic is a signal, not a destination
Traffic tells us something. It shows interest and reach. But it does not tell us if we are solving real needs. I have seen many websites with excellent rankings that still do not deliver results. The gap between visibility and value can be enormous.
Traffic without revenue is not the most important thing. Modern SEO must start from a different question. Are we helping the right people at the right moment or are we simply collecting visits that look good in a report.
At Holafly we began to treat traffic as a consequence instead of an objective. The objective is to support decisions about staying connected when traveling. If a page does not contribute to that decision, the ranking is irrelevant.
SEO as a way to read the market
I no longer see SEO only as an acquisition channel. It is also a listening tool.
“For me now SEO is another channel to understand how people know or not the brand.”
Search behavior reveals doubts, fears and expectations. It shows how travelers talk about roaming, about eSIM, about data plans. When we analyze those signals, we understand much more than keywords. We understand perception.
This is why SEO must be connected to product and to brand strategy. If we isolate it inside marketing, we lose its real power.
Presence across the entire journey
In the eSIM industry the purchase moment often arrives late. Many travelers only think about connectivity when they are already planning a trip or when a problem appears. If we appear only at that last step, we arrive too late.
“We need to be present in all parts of the funnel, at the beginning and at the end.”
That means creating content that helps before the user even knows what an eSIM is. Guides about destinations, about how to avoid roaming surprises, about how mobile access works abroad. These early interactions build trust that rankings alone cannot build.
Measuring what actually matters
The conversation about metrics must evolve. Instead of asking how many visits we generated, we should ask different questions:
- Did our content help a traveler choose a better option?
- Did it reduce confusion about roaming and eSIM?
- Did it contribute to revenue in a clear way?
SEO teams need to think like business units. The language of success must be revenue, customer value and brand perception, not only impressions and clicks.
A new role for SEO professionals
This change also transforms the profile of SEO leaders. We are not only technicians optimizing pages. We are part of strategic decisions about how a company is perceived. Modern SEO sits between data and business. Between user intent and product reality. Between brand promise and measurable results.
If we continue to chase traffic alone, we will become irrelevant. If we connect our work to real outcomes, SEO becomes one of the most powerful voices in the company. Rankings opened the door. Revenue proves we deserve to stay inside. And that is the metric that finally matters.
