by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 15, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
A sobering reminder for any SEO professional or website owner desperately trying to crack the front page of the search engines.
A staggering 75% of internet users never go past the first page when searching in Google!
The sad reminder of this fact is that if your website isn’t on the first page of Google, your website is only performing at maximum – 25% capacity in terms of it’s search engine traffic capacity. Even scarier is that the coveted page #1 position has only 10 spots available and there are thousands, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of websites are competing for that spot. If you don’t bring your A-Game to your SEO efforts, someone else will. When that happens, you end up on page 2, 5, 18, or 72!
You might be happy being on page #2 in a Google search, but all that means is that you’re the first loser.
I’m not trying to be harsh or insensitive, but rather make your realize that “good enough” doesn’t cut it in the SEO world. You need to be on page one for as many search terms as possible and you need to work hard to stay in that position. Every day that you’re not in the number one spot, you’re losing out on potential customers and sales. Your competitor who holds the page #1 spot for your optimum keywords is essentially taking your customers from you.
Don’t just sit back and let your website be a victim of your lack of time, experience, expertise or laziness. Take charge of your SEO efforts, or let someone else take charge of them.
Your website is an investment not an expense. It should have an ROI.
If your website has only ever been an expense, you’ve been doing something wrong. A website costs money to build and maintain, but it should have a fairly tangible ROI. You should be getting leads through your website, and leads that convert to sales or clients and this is something you should be able to measure.
The difference between a poor performing website and one that bring in sales/customers/leads/prospects is a very thin line because quite often it’s not the actual website that’s the problem. It’s the website’s search engine rankings that are preventing the website from reaching out and touching your prospective clients/customers.
An SEO audit and strategy can solve this!
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 14, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
An SEO audit is the foundation of an SEO campaign because it gives us an understanding of the factors affecting a websites search engine rankings. Until we do an SEO audit, we can’t fully understand what we need to do in order for your website to be a success.
SEO Panic…
The usual scenario unfortunately goes like this: A company realizes that their website is under-performing in the search engine rankings so they start doing completely random activities like link building or article marketing in a flurry of activity, trying to get their website rankings to improve. It’s a panicked approach to taking action and often fails because activity apart from a strategy is an inefficient way to spend your SEO efforts and may even lead to a penalty.
A better approach is to have an SEO audit completed to get a full picture of where your website stands, the issues affecting your rankings and the solutions to improve. This method offers a more methodical approach to SEO and is a must for any company or organization serious about website rankings.
What’s included in an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is the starting place that allows us to help you build a strategy. The SEO audit addresses many factors including:
- Keyword Research, Placement & Anchor Text
- Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools Data
- Response Codes (404, 301, 302 etc.,)
- Sitemap, Robots.txt & .htacess Analysis
- Title Tag & Meta Information review
- On-site & Off-site Content/Media Review (text, video, images)
- Website Structure & Usability
- Backlink Analysis
- Competition Comparison
- Social Media, Web2.0 & 3.0 property evaluation
- Up to 2 hours of SEO coaching to help implement recommendations
The SEO Audit is Done: Now What?
The good news is that our SEO audits don’t just tell you the issues, but they give you the solutions and actionable steps to improve your rankings. We write the report in plain, easy to understand language with steps that can either be implemented by your in-house developer or team, or you can inquire about an SEO package with Jonathon Hyjek and allow us to work to build your rankings.
To answer the question at the outset of this post: Do you need an SEO audit? For many, the answer will be YES without any hesitation.
