[sanjalee]

What are the drawbacks to doing SEO? Some things that come to mind:
- Poorly balancing search engine optimization with user experience
- Focusing on keyword optimization causes you to overlook important keywords

Anything else?

[Nick R]

I'd say just general loss of focus. If you immerse yourself optimizing your site for SERPs you may screwup elsewhere. Such as properly managing your community and dealing with the many other aspects of administration.

[MrKielington]

That and over saturation is another problem.. You don't wanna stick 20 keywords on a single page or something like that otherwise you can't optimize the content on the page as effectively. Make sub domains or alt URL's to fit in the other keywords and optimize the content for that page as well.

[developerholic]

Well, "keyword stuffing" could make you look like you do not know how to construct a good sentence. Aside from that, I do not see any drawbacks

[hilda_mateiu]

the drawbacks compared to what? compared to not optimizing your website for SEO?

if you want your website to get found by searchers, your choices are to a) run a ppc campaign, b) optimize your site for organic rankings, or c) use both ppc and seo to market your site.

i choose option C.

and btw, if you do your keyword optimization correctly and conduct extensive keyword research and constant keyword discovery, you'll never overlook the important keywords. in fact, the opposite it true. by conducting keyword research, you will discover the important keywords.

good luck.