SEO Doesn’t Work for You? Maybe it’s Because Your Baby is Ugly
A recent blog post in the New York Times Small Business section touches on an issue that comes up often in our space: Can SEO succeed on a site that does not compel you to buy? The blog features a local dermatology service provider who was unhappy with their SEO program because it didn’t generate enough consultation requests. The company ultimately deemed the effort ‘not worth the cost’. The writer does not get into whether site traffic increased as a result of optimization, but we all know those metrics don’t mean a thing if it doesn’t translate into conversions – so that means SEO failed, right? Maybe, maybe not.
The business owner suggested they had achieved some success with their social media initiatives and had installed Google Analytics to get more insight into their user behavior. They are now seeking advice on how to improve their site design and overall usability.
That all sounds great, but why didn’t they consider their website design before they embarked on SEO? Having an SEO audit of their site beforehand could have saved them a lot of time and money, not to mention the guess work involved. But critiquing a site is hard – hard for an agency and even harder for a company to see themselves objectively. The time, energy and care that can go into developing a website is a bit like parenting and it can be difficult telling a client that their baby is ugly. But an ineffective site will interfere with even the best SEO efforts, so the truth needs to be told, no matter how painful it is. In other words, we can drive leads to the door through relevant keywords and ads, but we can’t make them convert if the site is not doing its job.
An SEO Audit is one of the first things we do when taking on a new client and we almost always find there are changes that need to be made. We have a usability expert on staff who, aside from designing custom landing pages, will conduct a deep usability analysis for our clients that are struggling with conversions. A good SEO audit takes into account such elements as technology, navigation, architecture, content, as well as overall design. And while some changes are easier to make than others, an audit is the best way to gauge what you might need to address now versus what can wait. Either way, knowing where you stand is half the battle.
