This past week, I read an article by another SEO specialist who has been in this business about as long as I have, and who, like me, has been working with some smaller companies. The article described what I have experienced in terms of the changes in the search engines. The author also came to the same conclusion that I have: Successful SEO is about increasing sales–not just search engine rankings. It is far more important to build traffic from well-qualified potential customers and drive them to appropriate pages of a website than to have a #1 ranking for any couple of keyword phrases.
I invite you to read this article. It think it might enhance your understanding of SEO and what it can do for a business if it is handled with diligence and intelligence.
http://searchengineland.com/lost-1-ranking-profits-exploded-overnight-214023