So what does this mean for you and your website and your business? The answer is obvious; you can’t ignore your site or treat it like and afterthought when it comes to marketing your services. Yet, we still see websites that aren’t compliant with modern standards and which don’t score well in Google searches. We see sites that ignore email requests for more information. And we see sites that look like they were designed ten years ago.

It’s important to realize that for many people, your site is the FIRST PLACE they go for information. They may see a billboard or a TV ad or hear something on the radio, but their initial introduction to your business IS YOUR WEBSITE.

So, it’s simple. Make sure your site it attractive, fast and easy to find. Really, you have no other choice!

If you want to improve your local SEO, start now.

Here’s the story…

One of my clients wanted to improve their rankings, but they refused to do what was necessary. That was several years ago. We parted company early on, as I saw that this company was unwilling to apply the techniques that would be needed to improve their organic rankings. Why? I have no idea. It wasn’t the money, as they are currently doing a huge spend on AdWords. When I suggested that we could take a few keywords and products and push them onto the first page of Google SERPS, they just ignored the advice. They claimed their website couldn’t be updated, that it was a sort of “black box,” and that they didn’t have a developer to make the changes that I had encouraged them to make.

Today, their rankings are not only stalled, but falling in most of their important categories. This actually drives me nuts, but there is nothing to be done. Those chose that path. I wish them luck.

On the other hand, another client (who shall also go nameless) trusted Over Easy SEO from the start. And that start was about ten years ago. We did everything we could to push them up the rankings ladder and it worked. But better yet, because we started early, those rankings built on themselves. After all, once you’re one of the top results pages, more people are going to click through and, viola, you just helped solidify your position.

If this same client had hemmed and hawed and not allowed us the freedom to improve their website, they might never have gotten to where they are today, which is on top for multiple keywords and often an appearance in the “local pack” at the top of the search results page.

So yea. Start now. If you want to work with us, fine. Love to help you. But if not, now worries. Just don’t put this off.

Start. Now.

One of the main reasons that companies, large and small, started to migrate to WordPress years ago was that it gave them the ease of making modest updates to their sites without having to involve a website developer.  It wasn’t that long ago that most sites were custom-built from the ground up.  Developers wrote a lot of that code by hand or used snippets that they’d created before.  It was a long, complicated, time-consuming  process.

But the real problem came when a client wanted to make a change. Say, update a price or add a new product or image.  While not “difficult,” per se, if a client was given access to the base code, there was a very good chance they’d inadvertently muck up the code — and break the site.  This happened A LOT!

So along came WordPress, which was initially a blogging platform.  With a relatively simple “backend” (the area where you make changes) it allowed almost anyone to set up a site and make those changes that were so important to them.  There are now a plethora of Content Management Systems (CMS) to choose from which, by and large, do the same thing as WordPress, just in slightly different ways.

So the question is;  has this allowed our clients to make regular updates and changes to their websites, without fear of breaking their site in a multitude of ways?  Yes, and no.

We have some clients who, after some training, feel comfortable updating their sites.  Others (and this is the vast majority) neither have the time nor inclination to do this.  It makes sense in many ways.  If you run a small business, you are (hopefully) busy doing THAT, not messing around with your website. And there are other considerations as well.  Any plugins you use on your WordPress site (they add features and flexibility) need to be kept up to date.  This is essential today, where the number of cyber criminals and hackers has exploded.  If your WP install and the plugins are NOT up to date, they can often be exploited by “bad actors.”

I get an email sent to me once or twice a month that outlines the number of WP plugins that have vulnerabilities.  It often has 30 or more plugins that this security company has flagge and need to be updated RIGHT NOW.

So, yes, oddly, as WP has become more popular, it has also become more vulnerable — and more complicated!  The updated core code is much improved over a few years ago, but it has gotten to the point where just jumping in and do it yourself can be a bit daunting!

With that said, Over Easy offers an extremely affordable monthly maintenance program.  No, let me amend that;  it’s downright cheap!  And the good thing is that you can unload all the updates, security fixes, photo uploads, text adjustments to us.  Let us know if you can have any questions and we’ll be happy to chat!

OE