I have had a rash of phone calls from prospects telling me that their organic placement has dropped so much after they paid a ton of money for a new website that they want to repost the website they had five years ago to get their old traffic and Google.com placement back. Sorry, but there is no time machine that will take us back to the time you placed highly on Google.com.
A website is not a brochure; you create it once and then hand it out for years. It is a work of art, a puzzle, a tool, a selling machine. It needs care and it needs content updates. What worked three years ago and five years ago certainly does not work now. Even if we could reload a website that performed well five years ago on Google, it would certainly not perform in the same place today.
The Web has changed dramatically in the time that I have been providing professional services and it has significantly changed in the past three years and significantly changed this past year. What is important for website owners to understand is that now the content is crucial for organic placement, but more than that, it cannot just stop at great content.
A well placed website (in the organic search results) needs:
- great content that provides features and benefits
- content that is informational beyond what you sell and service
- regular updates of interesting articles, white papers, and informational updates
- social networking work off site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
- a blog that is updated a minimum of three times a week and deep links to pages in your website
That in a nutshell is a web authority site! A website that is beyond a brochure but provides real help and information for readers not only on services and products that are sold but on topics and ideas. This is no five page website, that’s for sure.
It takes time and money to build and maintain a web authority site, but the rewards can be big. With a site that is well placed organically, you may not need to spend quite so much in advertising to get traffic to your site. The older your authority site is, the more links you will naturally earn which will continue to improve your placement as well. Additionally, the depth of information you have on your website will let prospects know you know your business and are the go-to person for their needs.
What used to work three years ago for organic placement certainly will not work now, but quality content and information-rich web pages will never go out of style. I invite you to visit our “web authority website” and see if we can help you too.