Ugh…… I swear, if one more “local internet marketing” solicitor walks through the gallery doors my head is going to explode. Seriously, it will just explode!
Yesterday another person (in a long line of persons) walked in to ask me to advertise with their local web site. It’s a web site about Prescott, tourism, and local businesses. And for only $xxxx per year I can advertise on their site. Further, they show up on the first page of google searches on Prescott…….
After the person left I googled their site. No dice, not on the first page. Only when I used the exact phrase that was mentioned to me did the site show up on the first page of Google. And it isn’t a phrase any normal person would use when searching on Prescott.
Fortunately I did brush the marketing pitch off fast. I regularly check website rankings, I keep categories, tags, and meta data in mind when working on my sites, and I find that I do pretty well with my own traffic to this site, my main personal site, and the Ian Russell Gallery site. Looking at this latest “Prescott” website one thing was clear……
Not ranked by Google, Alexa, Website Grader, or any other ranking service. Looking into the company’s background through a few searches told me this is an extremely new domain name (within the past few months). The site is laid out with WordPress and a favorite magazine style theme that I have used before for other clients. There are no real articles on the website, just filler content for the moment. So, what’s going to drive traffic to this site? And what justifies spending money to advertise on a site that only shows up in a very specific search with a very specific phrase…..?
Everybody’s got a pitch and an angle when it comes to getting you traffic on the Internet. Personally, what I’ve found time and again is content drives your traffic and rankings. No content, no traffic. Pretty simple.
Do I have all my bases covered when pushing my wares online? Nope. If I had more time in the day I could optimize the site further. But doing some side by side searches last night I did discover one thing….. I came up more often on Prescott searches than this new website. Maybe they should pay me to advertise their site!
Always do your homework before cutting a check to any “local web presence” marketing company. 9 times out of 10 your site is already doing better than theirs!