The Cranky Willy Wonka’s Secret to Better SEO

From the outside, it looked closed.

No sign. No welcome. Just a tired building with nothing to draw you in. But if you stepped inside, it was like stepping into a time capsule.

When I was a kid, there was a strange little shop in my hometown: Vic Bains Department Store. Sometime in the 1960s Vic had closed the dry old store and walked away from his store for decades, and when he reopened, he hadn’t changed a thing. The shelves still held the original inventory with the original price tags.

There were wedding dresses for $14. Shoes, hats, and coats untouched since the 1960s. All of it was waiting, in the dark, for someone to say yes. To me, finding it was like finding buried treasure. Vic was like a cranky Willy Wonka — no Oompa Loompas in sight, just cigar smoke and PBS fishing shows humming in the background.

Lights by request only

Here’s how it worked: my mom would coach me to be on my sweetest kid behavior. I’d walk up to the counter and say, “Sir, I’m looking for some shoes for Easter.”

Vic would sigh, shuffle across the floor, and flip on just the light in the shoe section. Then he’d go back to his chair.

Want to see the ties? He’d flip on the tie light. Toys? The toy light.

One light at a time. One aisle at a time. Everything else stayed hidden in shadow.

What this taught me about websites

I didn’t realize it then, but Vic’s store is exactly how most websites look to search engines and visitors today.

• No sign out front. Just like Vic’s signless storefront, your website’s homepage needs a clear headline. Without one, search engines and people have no idea what you’re selling.
• Lights off. Vic’s store was all darkness, one light at a time. Your website is the same if you’re missing meta descriptions, alt text, and title tags. These are the specific “lights” that Google needs to flip on so people can find your products or services.
• Treasure buried. The wedding dresses were valuable, but they were buried in the dark. Your best content is just as valuable, but if it’s never updated, refreshed, or linked to properly, it stays buried on a dusty shelf.

You might have wedding-dress-level value sitting on your site, but if no one can find it, what good does it do?

SEO is just flipping on the lights

Good SEO isn’t complicated. It’s clarity. It’s the “lights on, doors open” version of your business:

• A clear headline that acts like your sign.
• Meta tags that guide visitors in.
• Content that reflects what you do today, not what you did decades ago.

It’s not about tricks. It’s about making sure your most valuable work isn’t sitting unseen on a dusty shelf.

The takeaway

Vic’s store was fascinating because it was a time capsule. But a successful business can’t afford to be one. If you’re tired of hoping someone wanders in and asks for the lights to be turned on, it’s time to flip on the lights.