Web Design Companies Suck!

I’ve just put the phone down from a potential new client and they have just told me an oh so familiar story:

• Web Design Company charged $3,500 to build client a website 18 months ago
• Client very happy as site looks great
• 18 months later - client gets no traffic to their shiny new website
• Client now very unhappy!

I hear this all the time.  Having a great looking website is not enough.  I get really mad when web design companies build a website for a business and do not explain that they will not get any visitors (and therefore no business), unless they market that website.

Having a website will NOT get you any business - Marketing your website WILL get you business!

Small businesses do not understand how Search Engine Marketing works.  In my opinion it’s the responsibility of the the company that builds their website to explain how to market their website online.  Here lies the problem… most web designers don’t know either!

Building a website and marketing a website are 2 different skill sets and it’s rare that you find someone with both.

Bottom line: If you have a website, you need to do the marketing to get your website ranking at the top of the search engines.  If you don’t, do not expect to get any business as no-one will be able to find your website.

Social Media Slap - Bull

The last couple of weeks I’ve been hearing a lot of noise about Google’s Social Media Slap.

Yes Google has again performed another update and yes the search engine marketing game has changed - a little!

As usual some websites and social media sites have benefited and others have lost ground.  You may have seen some sites ranking improve and some may have disappeared from the search results completely.

SO WHAT…

This is the nature of marketing online.  Google makes the rules and we manipulate them to our advantage.  Diversification is king, if one method is no longer working, focus on another.  My eggs are never all in one basket, I have an arsenal of tactics that I implement for every one of my sites, so when Google changes it’s algorithm it rarely affects me much.

Bottom line…

Make sure you are not focusing all of your energy on one type of search marketing.  This way if Squidoo gets slapped, who cares, you also have Hubpages, Wordpress, Article Marketing and video marketing working for you.