The Case of the Missing Website
Round Foods with Holes is a (fictitious) New Jersey bakery that sells donuts and bagels. Their motto is “Empty on the inside, delicious on the outside” and they have been in business for over 15 years. Every day they make fresh and delicious breakfast donuts and bagels. They are a strong part of the local community and they are proud of the business they have built. But, they are concerned about declining sales and increased competition.
They decided that they were long overdue for a website and paid a web design company to build the website for them. It was an attractive website with the latest design trends. It was mobile-friendly so people could view the site on their phones while on the go. Customers could see the menu and order online so that their bagels or donuts would be ready for pickup when they arrived at the shop.
While their new website was well-received by their existing customers, their sales did not increase much. They were hoping the new website would bring in new bagel-seeking customers but instead, it just made the business more convenient for their existing customers. That was good for the existing customers, but the real goal was to bring in new customers.
They searched in Google and Bing or other search engines for “donuts near me” and “local bagel shop” and “best bagels in New Jersey” and “tasty NJ donuts” and many other search keywords but their site was nowhere to be found in the search engine result pages. They dug deep; going past the first 20 pages but still could not find their website in the search results.
If they typed their website address RoundFoodsWithHoles.com into the address bar of the browser, they found their website. And if they Googled their business name, they also found their website. But what about the people who wanted a bagel or a donut but didn’t know their website address or business name? They would never find the delicious round baked goods!
Searching for keywords related to their business yielded nothing. Their website was basically invisible, missing. Yet, they knew it was out there somewhere; they could visit it. This was a problem. What went wrong?
They did more research. Apparently, Google does not just put a website at the top of page 1 just because it is attractive and new. They learned that launching a website on its own does not automatically put the site into the first three pages of the search engine results. They also learned about something called “Search Engine Optimization” also known as “SEO” and they were intrigued. They learned that there are ways to convince Google to put one website over another in the search engine results. But it seemed too complicated and labor-intensive. They were already quite busy making bagels and donuts; too busy to learn and implement SEO strategies.
They contacted a NJ SEO company to learn how to make their “missing” website more visible in search engines like Google and Bing. The SEO company first spoke with them at length about their goals for the website. Next, they reviewed the website carefully to see if there were any issues related to the site that would prevent it from ranking in the search engines. Then, with the help of the client and some sophisticated tools, they decided on a number of keywords that Round Foods would like to be associated with. The SEO company showed Round Foods which keywords would likely be easier or harder to rank based on their research.
Then began what seemed like a long process. Every month, the SEO company would produce new content for Round Foods. They posted it on the website but they also posted content on other carefully chosen websites which, in turn, linked back to the RoundFoodsWithHoles.com website.
SEO is not a once and done thing and it took months. But after a while, RoundFoodsWithHoles.com began appearing in search engine result pages. At first, it was on pages 8 or 9. But each month the rankings improved. They made it to page 1 for some of their keywords. All this time, the SEO services company continued their link-building efforts, and guest posting, and website promotion activities. To fine-tune the SEO campaign, they reviewed the website again and made some more changes to the content and to the meta tags. Meta tags are not seen by the human viewers of a website, but the search engines read them, and they can influence the rankings as well.
Each month, Round Foods received a report detailing how the site is performing for the different keywords. They received Google Analytics reports as well which told them how people found their site and where they spent the most time.
The result of the SEO campaign was that as RoundFoodsWithHoles.com appeared closer and closer to page 1, their phones rang more. They had more foot traffic to the store. They had more online orders. They had new customers every day. And the new customers became regular customers who would enjoy their donut or bagel on the way to work.
While the details of this story are fictional, the outline of the story itself is true and it is played out again and again. There is no doubt that a website which appears on Google’s page 1 will have more visitors to the site. And if the website is compelling and attractive and easy to navigate, hopefully, those new visitors will become customers. Word of the business will spread through search engine optimization but also through word of mouth referrals. So, customers obtained through SEO can also yield customers by referral. The return on investment for SEO can be many times the cost of the SEO service.
A solid SEO campaign can revolutionize a business by changing what was an invisible website into a prominent website. The case of the missing website can be solved by dragging the website out of obscurity and onto Google’s page 1. Let Landau Consulting help you revolutionize your business with proven results in search engine optimization.