Don’t let SEO become expensive “life support” for a poor website

Fortunately your website is not a relative, friend or family pet … it is just a business tool. Before spending time and/or money to try to keep it alive with SEO, SMO, SEM and social media, to try to get it to produce results … consider replacing it with a newer less expensive, easier to maintain and proven performance/results platform. We can do it for you in just days. No matter how much you might like that “old gray mare“, she will never place in the “Google Derby” and put you in the winners’ money.

The problem with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Marketing Optimization (SMO) is that it is so often employed to keep an obsolete poorly performing websites operating with at least the hop of some results. That, and it is expensive and ongoing. I keep seeing Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Optimization presented as “solutions” for poorly designed websites that are not very search engine “friendly”. Website owners are persuaded that they need to spend time or money employing a SEO specialist building “backlinks”, researching and using keywords, starting one or more Blogspot blogs (plus regular blog postings), create a Ning type forum, write and publish Squidoo articles and related internet press releases, get a 1,000 or more Twitter followers, build a Facebook profile and page and get many friends and fans, repeat with MySpace and other social networks. And do this all in addition to running their business and making a living. “Luckily” SEO consultants are available to do this for you … for a price of $200 to a $1000 a month, or more. And they will tell you it will take time and things could change in the search engines which will mean results could be uncertain.

It all starts to sound like a television medical drama … the patient (your website) is performing poorly … there are a lot of elaborate and expensive treatments available … that may take time to work … if at all. There are times perhaps it is best just to end it, pull the plug on the website created for an older era and replace it with a current website structure proven to perform by its self without expensive SEO “life support”.

You need to consider cost/benefit.

The TWESA website we just did (described in a post below), is an excellent study of the cost and results of applying SEO after the fact or having it built into a new website. The website that TWESA had before was representative of standard old style format and much like the majority of small businesses website. It was expensive to maintain requiring the web designer and special software to make changes and worse it did not show up very well in search results. So in addition to the site’s development cost TWESA paid about $200 a monthly for many months for SEO services. Getting at best mixed results. Recently TWESA decided to use us to create a modern website to replace their existing one, the one that had over $2,000 worth of SEO treatments, with our new website architecture with built-in SEO/SEM/SMM goodness. The TWESA online presence showed immediate increase in organic search traffic. A FIVE fold increase in search engine referral traffic in less than two weeks. All it took was a modern platform with the SEO, SMO and even social media built in. With no ongoing fees and all for less cost than the site it replaced.

Send me an email with your website address. I will be glad to review your website, share back my evaluation/measurements and suggestions. To “SEO it”, or to “pull the plug”.