I agree that good content is also essential, but I think the idea that good content will naturally be found / attract links is a fallacy. Thus, launching withou

I agree that good content is also essential, but I think the idea that good content will naturally be found / attract links is a fallacy. Thus, launching without an SEO strategy is putting your business at a serious disadvantage, one that you may not be able to recover from, even if you have great content. I really like your point about why people distrust SEO. I guess I have the separation between good and bad SEO, and care deeply about accessibility and usability, so its hard to remember that the bad SEO is what people usually notice and think of. Glad to know there's other SEO's on HN :) Cheers!