Me: “How’s your website doing?”
Client: “Very good, thank you, everyone loves how it looks.”
Me: “Are you getting much traffic?”
Client: “Oh, it’s halved since the new design went live last year!”
Me: “Is it generating leads?”
Client: “No, it never did and it’s not now! Please help!”
The answer to all these questions usually leads us to look at the website in question and within just a couple of minutes there are the usual tell-tale signs that the website looks good and has a lot of great features and functions, but underneath the bonnet…
…the designers did absolutely nothing to SEO your website!
We’ll save these tell-tale signs for another blog post but first, let’s look at the whys and wherefores.
Why Didn’t They SEO Your Website?
Very often, a great website design is literally just that – a great website design; It looks good, it has the wow factor, and everyone who sees it loves it. But that’s not enough – how many potential clients are actually getting to see it?
Did all the “oohs” and “ahs” come from people inside your business? Did everyone who was involved in signing it off love it? Then that’s great. But if the cap[tive internal audience with a cognitive bias are the only people who see your website then what’s the point?
Now the first reason you’ve got a website without any SEO functionality is that the web designers did just that – design. Web design is a sophisticated mix of art and science and specialists are very good at building good-looking websites.
But it takes the input of digital marketing specialists before, and at the time of, build to make sure that your site is created properly. If there is no SEO/SEM, no content management nor social media involvement with the design then it falls flat on its face.
Maybe the designers do not have the resource. Maybe they don’t have the skills. Well, that’s an issue because, in my opinion, every website absolutely MUST have SEO baked in from the very start.
But what if your designers do have the SEO skills or a resource to add organic search criteria into the mix, but the client doesn’t have the budget for SEO and decided to go for the cheaper option, cutting out the SEO features and functions?
Again, there really is no excuse. If you build a site that has not been SEO’d then you’re setting yourself up to fail.
The old line from the film “Field of Dreams” comes to mind here…
“Build it and they will come”
Well, in my experience that isn’t the case.
If you have a website built but nobody knows it’s there, then how is anybody going to find out about it?
OK, So What Now?
It’s never too late to apply SEO techniques to your business’ website, but you have been at a disadvantage having to do it so late in the game. You have probably missed an increase in traffic at the launch of your new site. When was that? Last month? Not so bad. Last year? Oh, that’s not good. A few years ago? OK, now that’s a problem.
But don’t worry.
SEO is best talked about and integrated during the website conceptualisation and build phase and, if you’re lucky, it can still be fully applied at this late stage.
However, be aware that some things cannot be undone or fixed immediately. For instance, you could be on the “wrong” Content Management System (CMS), have the “incorrect” theme or templates or be held back by the fact that the e-commerce plugin is not the most SEO-friendly or customisable one.
Also, your information architecture might be a bit of a mess, your content might be a bit “thin” and the supporting social media structures could be somewhat flimsy if not non-existent.
But again, fear not.
As a one-man digital marketing agency and Hampshire-based SEO specialist with a great many years of experience, I have a solution for you. Call me on 01252 692 765 and let’s discuss SEO for your business website, either as a one-off project or you can secure my services on an SEO retainer. And forgive me if I blurt out “Your Web Designer didn’t SEO your Website?”