How many unsolicited emails have you received from self-reported SEO experts telling you that your website is absolutely atrocious and that your SEO rankings are suffering substantially. They’ll even go on to tell you that your site isn’t found under such groundbreaking keywords that don’t even remotely pertain to your business or who you are as a business. They scare you JUST enough for you to bite on their free groundbreaking report.
These trolls HAVE to get a very important document into your precious hands. They want you to bite; they want you to be scared; petrified even, that your entire SEO strategy is absolute rubbish. Enter, the SEO report.
Most SEO firms have access to software that “automagically” goes out to the Internet and scrapes data meant to confuse the bejesus out of you, and offer you random tidbits of data that may or may not be impacting your website AT ALL. I’ve seen a million of these reports and EVERYTIME I’ve seen one, it’s cause for overwhelming alarm. What do you mean my site ranks 8 out of 100 for load speed? How is it that my logo is not appearing in the mobile version of my website on your end, but works perfectly fine on my end? How is it that my domain authority is 22 out 100? I have authority and so does my website for Pete’s sake…..
Beware the SEO report my friends. Yes. There are legitimate digital marketing companies out there who know what they are doing and can quickly analyze your website and can generate a worthwhile report, BUT, the majority of these reports are designed to scare you, disturb you, cause you great alarm and get your boss more ticked off at you then an angry badger high on crack cocaine. So, what’s important, and what’s not? Let’s dig deeper.
Keywords.
Important:
Existing keyword rankings for targeted, relevant keywords that actually mean something to your customers.
Not Important:
Keywords that no one in the world will ever possibly conceive of using to find your products or services.
Site Load Time.
Important:
Is your website loading VERY slowly? Yes. Site load time is important, but not all sites load like the tasmanian devil on 3 cups of espresso.
Not Important:
Your website loaded in 1.2 seconds. This is considerably slower than the MIT / Stamford Laboratories Supercomputer’s load time–your rankings in Google are destined to fail miserably.
Meta Tags.
Important:
Yes, your website should use title and description tags on each page (uniquely) to tell Google and other search engines what your pages are all about.
Not Important:
“Your website has NO meta keywords embedded into your website.” Here’s a bit of a news-flash. Google pays NO attention to the meta keywords tag and hasn’t for years. Some search engines might pay a very little, tiny bit of attention to it, but this is not mission critical to the overall success of your entire business model and will not impact life as you know it, or the life of your pet bearded dragon for that matter.
Sitemaps.
Important:
Yup. An XML sitemap on your website CAN potentially help Google and the other search engines more efficiently find new pages of brilliance on your website and therefore index them more quickly.
Not Important:
HTML Sitemaps. “Your website is lacking an HTML sitemap which can help users navigate your website more better.” (actual statement from a worthless SEO report.) Here’s an idea: Create a website that is so easy to navigate that your users don’t need to hunt down an archaic page filled with hyperlinks.
Broken Links.
Important:
If some of the core pages of your website are missing because your 4 year old started getting click crazy while your WP-ADMIN was open on your home laptop, you will run into issues especially if that content was already indexed in Google. Be sure to pay attention to your Google Webmaster tools regularly to see if any core pages are not being found on your website. Either rebuild them, or 301 redirect them to the new version of the pages.
Not Important:
Old, legacy pages from 12 years ago that feature mouse trails and Flock of Seagull lyrics streaming across your copy that have disappeared are NOT going to harm your overall ranking strategy. If the page hasn’t been updated in 12 years anyway, its pointless to your users. Yes, the best practice would be to redirect the page to a generic page using a 301 if its no longer relevant, but it won’t be impacting the cosmos as we know it when it comes to SEO.
Site Structure.
Important:
Is your website easy for your website visitors to use? That’s important. Is your website easy for Google and the other search engines to crawl? Equally important. There is no PERFECT site structure, but there are some good best practices out there that can help Google digest your sites’ goodness.
Not Important:
Magical geek / tech speak that needs to be decoded by a NASA rocket surgeon about how your ASP pages should be re-written by the flux capacitor in order to spew out HTML versions of the URL’s that run on under 22,000 Gigawatts of interchangeable current generated by a pack of rabid chinchillas on a hamster wheel. Yes, site structure is important, but we’re not building a nuclear device here.
Structured Data.
Important:
Structured data was all the rage last year. All of the cool sites were doing it, and your shiny new SEO report suggests that your website should be sipping the structured kool-aid as well. Can it help with your rankings? Yes, a bit. It basically helps Google and other search engines know how to classify your business, etc. If you haven’t implemented it yet, it’s worth the exercise. Will it cause your rankings to shoot to the top tomorrow? Nope. But at least you’ll be sitting at the cool kid table.
Not Important:
Obsessing over implementing 523 possible different entries for structured data on your website. Stick with the 5 W’s. Who? What? When? Where? Why. If you can address those core areas through structured data, you’re golden Pony Boy.
Responsive.
Important:
Yes. A responsive version of your website is critical. In fact, so critical that Google has announced responsive design as an integral portion of the their new algorithm in to be pushed in April. If your site doesn’t look spiffy in Tablets, Smartphones, etc., Google doesn’t want to suggest it in mobile search results.
Not Important:
“Your website does not integrate with the Galaxy S3 model android based calculator app in real time and users may have issues solving advanced calculus problems through your mobile UI interface.” The bottom line, keep your website simple, keep it free from too many bells and whistles and your website visitors will thank you. Oh, and Google will think the sun rises and sets on you. Good job buddy, you pleased the great Google God.
There are a million other confusing elements to these reports such as domain authority, how long your competitors have registered their domain name for, what you should name your new pet goldfish, what types of servers are your competitors websites being hosted on, etc..
I simply encourage you to look at what’s important:
- How many leads are you getting?
- How is your site ranked?
- How are you making it easy for your website visitors to find you?
- Are you generating amazing content that is being shared via social media channels?
- Is Google able to find your content on your site and off-site?
Yes, there are technical components to be considered. Yes, there are some geeky details that need to be integrated (or we wouldn’t have a job), but at the end of the day, is your business and your audience benefitting from your web presence? If not, it’s time to call us. 407-830-4550. https://ontargetdigitalmarketing.com/contact.
