You know that your business needs to be online to be able to compete with other Keswick businesses. Otherwise how will new customers find you and how will existing customers know when you’re open?
But is having a website enough to bring in new and repeat business?
Your Website Has a Lot To Do
Your website has several jobs to do:
- Help new and existing customers find your products and services in Keswick
- Introduce new products and services
- Promote sales, events and business information
- Identify the people that live in Keswick that will benefit by using your products and services
- Explain how and why your products and services are the answer that customers and clients need
Why Your Website Fails at What it Needs To Do
Search engines (we’re looking at you Google) like to change their algorithms that provide search results. What worked last week no longer drives traffic to your website and if you’re not on top of the reasons why, you’re ranking, and search result page exposure, suffers.
Websites need to be informative, for visitors to appreciate your products and services.
Websites also need to be “readable” by search engine bots and spiders that will find and distill the content of your website, compare and rank it against other websites, and display that information to people that search for the keywords, phrases and information you have your website.
The “weight” of keywords (short and long-tail), that a search engine puts on your content is always evolving. These changes account for the ups and downs of SERP (search engine results page) positions.
Your website fails when it doesn’t also evolve along with the “new search engine rules” that will drive traffic to your website and business.
How To Improve Your Website Performance
Your website should undergo a content and technical audit annually. This will allow you to correct any errors, update old content, expand on good, traffic driving content, and more.
Knowing what keywords are driving visitors to your website and business is only the first part of any website audit.
If you’re not also looking at competitor websites, and how their performance differs from yours, you’re missing out on positioning your business ahead of any competitors. The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis will guide you to understanding short and long term improvements and goals that need to be made.
You also need to know what parts of your content need to be updated and which content articles can be expanded upon to build your authority in your particular category.
What Is a Website Audit?
A website audit breaks down the technical aspects of your website so you can understand better your SERP results and how people find you. This includes website on-page components, technical aspects of your website being correct (keywords, H tags, alt tags, content composition, etc.). You should receive detailed information about the following aspects of your website as the audit progresses and your website is updated.
- Keyword research
- Technical SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Competitor analysis
As this information is provided to you an action plan should be mapped out and acted on. These audit items are comprehensive steps that will take time to make the required website changes and to see results.
Tweaking content, researching and re-aligning keywords and expanding the website with newly written content takes time. Results are not immediate but should start being seen after about 3 months.
If you’re interested in a website audit for your Keswick business, send me a message.
