Your Friend on the Web, Diana Ratliff

Website Strategy & Digital Consulting

keywords

Those Scary “Poor Google Rankings” Emails & Calls

Woman Scared Because Website Does Not Rank in GoogleIf you’ve had a website for any length of time at all, you’ve probably gotten scary-sounding emails warning you that your site doesn’t rank in the search engines.

I got one just this morning:

We like your site, but we noticed that you are missing out on key web traffic due to where you show up on the search engines…

One of my clients got one yesterday that she forwarded to me:

Dear Business Owner:  I searched for (search term) and (business name) was nowhere to be found…  you’re buried in position number 11.  That means potential clients aren’t finding you. Whether by luck or skill, 7 of your competitors are enjoying the benefits of being on page 1. Simply put, they are getting ALL your business.

An attorney friend told me that someone from a well-known industry-related web design/SEO firm kept calling him to tell him his site didn’t rank for X, Y and Z search terms.

If you get an email or phone call like this, should you be worried?

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Is There a Gnome On Your Toadstool? (Importance of Research)

Research Avoids ProblemsOne of my mentors online, Ben Hunt, was talking about the importance of research, and I love the way he phrased it:  “… research the marketplace to check there’s room, and there isn’t another gnome on your toadstool.”

Your particular “toadstool” could be many things.  It could be your profession (realtor, web designer, plumber).  It could be your differentiator (price or selection.)  It could be your location, or your store hours, or your guarantee, or your training.

The point is that if there’s already a gnome (or two or three hundred) perched on your particular “toadstool”, it’s going to be difficult for you to claim it as your own.

Research is how you avoid this problem. If you’re in the mortgage business, and 3 million “gnomes” are already trying to rank for the keywords, “mortgage yourcity/yourstate”, maybe you should try to rank for “home loan” or “mortgage consultant” instead.

If you’re a printer, and most of your competitors have gnomes positioned on the “low price” toadstool, maybe you should position yourself on the “fast shipping” one.

A few “gnomes” are seldom problematic, but a lot of online marketers run into problems because they don’t do preliminary research on their online competition. Don’t let that happen to you!