All Facets of Digital Marketing Change, But User Experience Optimization Doesn’t
In the Wild West of digital marketing, you used to be able to do just about anything to manipulate a search engine to show your site above others. Over time, programmers got smarter, and the overall ranking system got more complex.
Let’s get this out of the way: If anyone tells you your website is guaranteed to rank for specific positions, just run. It’s simply not possible like it was back in the day.
Ranking online in Google search requires you to spend more time on several key areas:
- Content
- Technical Optimization
- Backlink Profile
- Local Listing Optimization
All of these things take time and years to build up, depending on the size of the site and the scale of the campaign. We generally communicate that “all things work together” to lift your overall position. It’s more competitive than ever to rank, get clicks and get buyers. So you can’t list a bunch of optimization-related things without continually building up your user experience.
My website is brand new. What do I do?
Don’t overthink it, for starters.
If your site is brand new and you’re interested in ranking higher in Google search for specific phrases, start compiling content ideas and look at competitor sites for inspiration. A five-page dentist website is going to have a hard time competing against someone online who has 50 pages to 100 pages more than you.
More pages = more keywords = more opportunity to be found in Google search. The higher the number of phrases, the greater the number of opportunities you have to be found. So come up with a plan and start producing content! This is perhaps the least favorite thing most people hear from us. 🙂
Producing content is difficult, and you’ll want to write enough so that the user and search engines have enough context. Google likes high-quality original content.
On-Page SEO Helps Drive Content
When you’ve got the content, it’s time to play. Content gives us the opportunity to optimize every single page with some form of natural optimization. Yes, over-optimization is a thing — because it used to work. Marketers still do it today in hopes of increasing positioning, but these days it’s all about the message, the brand, the product, and user expectations. Some things you can control; others you can’t.
A proper agency partner can help you with these things and more. All campaigns are collaborative, though, and the more support you can provide along the way, the better. Your time-to-results will vary, but like all things, the energy you put in will determine your overall outcome.
Stay Positive
Digital marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, so try to be patient. It does take time to build content and ranking. Twenty of our clients have been with us for more than five years, and 10 of those have been with us for nearly 10 years each. We have a track record of building results for businesses. And yet even with our expertise and might, our impacts may not be felt right away. It’s important that you find an agency partner who can really serve you. If you’re interested in learning more about finding an agency partner check out my post on this subject here.
As always, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
