The movie doesn’t work for websites. Just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come.
Just because you build a website doesn’t mean people are going to come to it. The success of your past website is no guarantee of future results. If you want people to be able to search for and find your website, you have to take SEO into account through the whole process.
The following is an example of a client of ours in a very niche market, and how they were positively (and negatively) affected by attention to SEO.
Strong Beginnings
2015 was a good year for Client X. Late in 2014, the website was brought from straight HTML to WordPress, and was initially optimized for search engines. This included elements like implementing proper redirects, meta data, improving page speed, etc. New articles were written, and the site performed very well overall – tripling in traffic.
When Saving Money Costs You Money…
In 2016, the company decided to move a different direction with their website. They hired a new company to build it, and tried to save some money on the design. The results were unfortunate.
Not only was the client not overly happy with the new design, but the new company completely neglected SEO. It was not built properly, and as a result the client lost virtually all of their gained traffic and high value leads. Even if they saved $10,000 on the new website design (it likely wasn’t that much), they literally lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in leads.
The Recovery Effort
In 2016, Wormann Consulting came in to help. We worked with a trusted partner to build the client a new website, fixed a multitude of errors, and built out a full SEO program including content, promotion (link building), ongoing technical work, and more. Over time, the client saw significant gains in both traffic and leads. In less than 4 years of working together, their traffic grew to approximately 10x what it was when they came in to work with us.
When you step back and look at their journey as a whole there are a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes these are caused by neglecting SEO as described above, sometimes it’s an issue with hosting (which happened in the past here with this client as well), or changes in Google’s algorithms that require some adjustment or waiting. Overall, SEO is a long-term game with trajectory that should be moving up over time. Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like for this client, with all the ups and downs over time:
Key Takeaways
Where do we go from here? There are some key lessons to be learned from the example above:
- You can’t take shortcuts building your website. At Wormann Consulting we typically lean on our trusted partners who we know will do things right, and we work closely with them to ensure SEO is taken into account. We do this because the manner in which your website is built can have a significant effect on SEO. Doing things wrong can tank your site quickly. Doing things right can help set you up for success over the long term, with some short terms gains as well. The old saying “you get what you pay for” is true. Realize that if you try to skip steps and cut corners when building your website, you’ll likely pay for it later. This was a perfect example.
- SEO takes time, and isn’t linear. There really is no magic bullet. The graph isn’t linear – it has ups and downs for various reasons. And sure, there are times where you have a success that brings things up more quickly than other times. Overall, the graph trends upward and you build and build. That’s when the benefit comes. Is SEO worth it? Absolutely. But you need to be patient and put the work in over time in order to see the results.
- Who you work with matters. There are a lot of companies out there that build websites, do SEO, and sell digital marketing as a whole. There are some good companies out there. There are some that don’t know what they’re doing. Who you work with matters. If you need a new website, let us know and we can put you in touch with someone who will do a great job and is a good fit for your specific needs. If you want to start a digital marketing program, whether it be SEO, Pay-Per-Click, or another comprehensive program, let us know and we can help set you up for success. Get in touch with us here.
