Let’s start with an analogy as this can often be helpful.
If you were to build a physical shop without a road or path leading to it, I think we can all agree that would be a terrible idea.
Websites without an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy are much like that shop which can’t be accessed.
Yes your Mum and your Dad might visit, but you’re not going to capture the abundance of traffic out there that want or need your service or product.
Google Rankings
Of course there are other search engines, but in general everybody wants to be on page one, position one on Google.
If you’re business is there or thereabouts and you’ve never been in that position before then you will immediately notice a difference in the amount of traffic, calls and emails to your business.
Is getting there complicated?
There are a whole lot of things that you can do to improve your Google ranking.
When broken down into smaller tasks and explained properly, each of those is probably fairly trivial.
However it’s also fair to say that looked on as a whole, it can definitely be daunting and requires a consistent ongoing approach and therein lies the problem.
Rather than businesses failing because of the complexity of SEO, it is more likely that they fail due to the following reasons:
- Lack of understanding
- Lack of consistency
- Lack of quality
Hopefully they’re all self explanatory.
You might not have any idea of what an SEO strategy is / or how to implement it on your website.
If what to do is not the problem for you then you may simply not have the time to implement it.
You may be implementing an SEO strategy but the quality is poor and you’re not seeing results.
The perfect SEO strategy
In terms of SEO, once you understand what to do then you should be doing it regularly and to a high standard.
Quality is important. Better to spend more time on a quality landing page or blog post then say creating a rubbish one every day.
Below is a list of SEO efforts covering frequency and quality, with 1 being the best and 4 being the worst.
- Often / high quality.
- Rarely / high quality.
- Often / low quality.
- Rarely / low quality.
The point is that it’s actually better to put less into your SEO efforts but hit a high level of quality everytime then it is to focus on lots of low quality SEO efforts.
However, a competitor producing high quality SEO on a consistent basis will still crush you.
In our experience, SEO strategies often start with a big effort, then the initial excitement wears off and rankings gradually fall.
If you can keep it up, you really will have a massive impact on your business, so grind it out on the days when you really don’t feel like it because it will be worth it.
So what makes a good SEO strategy for a website?
We couldn’t possibly cover all of the things needed in one blog post but luckily we don’t have to.
We have a fantastic 100 Days of SEO course that you get for free when you purchase a website with us.
Each day, for 100 days, you’ll get an email that explains a topic, how that benefits your Google rankings and information on how to action that, think of it like SEO homework.
If you follow these daily emails, then you will have a fantastic knowledege of what is needed in order to boost your businesses rankings and will be in complete control of them.
Even if you choose to outsource your SEO, you’ll be very well informed and will be able to keep your SEO partner honest by asking them the questions that need to be asked.
Too often we have businesses come to us that say they are spending £X a month on SEO, yet when we ask them simple questions about how that is helping their business, they don’t have any answers.
Everything on a website is trackable, therefore you can directly quantify whether your SEO investments are worth keeping up with.
For instance, if you found out for every £100 you spent on SEO you were earning £101, then you would chuck your life savings at it.
If however for every £100 you spend you were earning £50, then there’s a problem.
It doesn’t mean SEO isn’t for you, it’s for EVERYBODY!
But it does mean you require a review of what’s going on.
Adjust the strategy, not the goal!
We’re too busy at the moment
We hear this from businesses a lot.
It’s a great position to be in…for now, but what happens when you’re quiet in 6 months time.
You’ll look back and wish you had made some effort with your SEO.
The other thing that SEO is great for is because it allows you to do more of what you like doing or is more profitable for you to do.
A recent conversation with a plumber who didn’t want a website changed very quickly when we asked them what ideally would they like to do.
It was clear that installing boilers was not only more enjoyable for them but that it was quicker and more profitable too.
BAM! That’s why they needed a website.
Get yourself known as a boiler installation specialist and you can live your best life.
Bascially there is never a good reason not to have a website performing well in Google.
It’s better to turn work down then to be chasing work.
As it turns out with the plumber, they’re now employing a new member of staff to do the other bits that they don’t really want to do.