The Need for On-going SEO Education

What Makes for a Successful Website ?

A commonly held view is that you hang your new website out there and a healthy flood of new customers will start pouring through, enquiries will follow and sales will soar. And all at a really low cost. But in reality that is seldom the case. The question is; how do the owners of websites that achieve that actually make that happen ?

Let's assume that you (like most) want to use free natural search engine traffic (also called "organic" traffic) to generate those customer enquiries. We'll leave PPC (pay-per-click) and SEM (search engine marketing) for a separate discussion.

SEO (search engine optimisation) is not rocket science. It just takes an understanding of simple rules and making sure that you have no breakdown in the serial processes.

In short, you need:

1.   a website that is well optimised to generate strong, focussed traffic. (ie SEO)
    
2.   website design that gets visitors to click further (stickiness / low bounce rate) and then funnels them towards a specific "most wanted" response such as making sales enquiries. (ie. DESIGN)
    
3.   a program to continually monitor, review and modify the SEO to attract even more traffic to enable the DESIGN to work and generate more quality enquiries
    

You also need to understand that SEO is a fluid and constantly changing (evolving?) set of rules. What used to work well at one time may now get you penalised by the search engines. You cannot just throw up a website and leave it to do its work. The "build it and they will come" days are long gone (pre-2010). Competition is fierce and it gets harder by the day to stay out front. Know that SEO is a "Zero Sum Game" and that your gains are some else's losses. You are out there fighting for a slice of finite potential visitors.

The web has traditionally offered an oppportunity for smaller businesses to muscle up alongside the corporate giants to take a good slice of traffic and business. But in recent years, with the rise of brand authority and reputation, that advantage has been rapidly eroded. The corporates can also afford a digital marketing department with on-board SEO specialists as well as the services of top consultants. You can't.

Digital marketing spend comes with fuzzy results. There are long lead times before results can be measured, There are no guarantees and you pay high dollar based rates for SEO services. Local expertise is thin and close monitoring has high labour costs. Most often it is just simple automated audit programs that run and deliver boilerplate results. Sad stories abound. And for this reason you get all the spam offers of "Google front page results" as these are murky waters in which to swim.

So the only effective option left is that you stay up to date with SEO trends and apply these principles as best you can. It may not be enough to outshoot the corporates but it can put you ahead of your competitors  -  and that can reap massive rewards for you.

And that's where we come in to help you. We make sure you know what to do and stay ahead of the game.


 

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