Why a Website is Not Enough

I have many clients who contact me in a panic to redesign their outdated website because they are not ranking as high as their competitors in a search engine’s organic listing therefore missing out on valuable leads. While an outdated website certainly needs a search engine optimization refresh (or overhaul), the website is not the only issue at hand. Google and other major search engines have put a lot of recent effort into improving the ranking algorithm so that legitimate and relevant search results rank higher than SPAM sites trying to make money off of traffic. As a result, a website with even the best SEO is not enough – search engines now rank you based on your “blended rank” or overall online search presence. Blended rank could include anything from your website’s text, images, videos, social media presence and blog content. As such, gone are the days where you can focus solely on the text and keywords within your website – though it is still one of the most important.

What this means

If your website is outdated, it probably needs an overhaul; particularly the search engine optimization. But simply putting a new website out there and leaving it is not going to cut it anymore. After the website is launched, it is just as important to update your social media networks, blog posts, images, videos, local listings and other relevant content regularly and strategically to increase and even maintain your rank.

This is important because there are so many digital marketing channels from which a user can find your site and Google places a higher value on content that responds well to certain criteria such as click-through rates, time on site and social media shares which therefore improves blended rank. Of course, you can’t just post any content – as usual, there is a strategy involved. The content must be original, it must be relevant and must be a blend of owned, earned and paid among other factors. In addition, your website address, local address and other variables must be consistent among the various digital marketing channels.

The days of “if you build it, they will come” mentality are over in regards to websites. An optimized website is only the first step in the complicated puzzle of competing digitally. If you’re not using a strategic blend of digital content, contact us to find out how we can help. Happy ranking!