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Why Google Rankings is a Better Indicator of SEO Success than Website Traffic

Why Google Rankings is a Better Indicator of SEO Success than Website Traffic

Cityline Websites has been around for 21 years now.  During this time, we have done online marketing for hundreds of clients, in many different industries and under many different market conditions.

 

When we take on an online marketing client, the ultimate goal is to help make their business successful.  Most times, “successful” means bigger profit.

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of getting your website to rank better in Google searches. Although we often see an initial, sudden rankings boost when doing a website makeover, SEO is not an instantaneous process. Success is achieved by hard work optimizing your content--such as making the website fast to load--and making continuous website improvements over time. 

 

NOTE: there are other online marketing techniques to get you more business / more website traffic. This article focusses solely on the SEO component, the Google rankings portion of what we do.

 

Instant Success? 

We have many clients that sing our praises after one or two months taking over their website SEO.  This makes us cautiously optimistic that our initial edits went well. BUT, we have also had clients voice their displeasure after 2 or 3 months of work.  We say the same thing to both sets of clients.  SEO takes time and there can be tremendous variation according to what’s going on around them. 

For example, if we start SEO for an Edmonton house cleaning company in November, chances are that business will not be thriving two months later in January.  Whereas, if we started in Spring, website traffic should show a bigger improvements after two months - regardless of what we actually did. 

Why we care more about Google Rankings than website visitors 

There are many external factors influencing the number of visitors to your website. 

Things we cannot control

  • Economy (micro & macro)
  • World-wide pandemics
  • Weather
  • Seasons
  • Government Red tape
  • Taxes
  • Shipping costs
  • Client’s ability to close deals
  • Client pricing and competitiveness in their industry  

Things we can influence

  • Google Rankings

 

Yep, that’s it.  Our job is to get you ranking better than your competitors. That way you will get more visits than them and a bigger piece of the pie.  The pie size may change based on external factors, but your share is more.  That’s the crux of SEO.

 

So, when the calls drop off after a bad weather month, or after the interest rates jump 4% in 6 months, don’t necessarily blame the SEO company.  If nobody is looking to wash their windows in winter, maybe it’s not Google’s fault. Maybe nobody is looking…  Conversely if you have a banner month of business, it may or may not be due to your SEO company. Maybe the external stars have aligned in your favour. Ride that wave.  

Conclusions 

As you can see from the information above, as SEO experts, there is only so much we can do.  As a client, you need to realize that there will be ups and downs.  Look at the big picture, not the day-to-day results.  How is your SEO doing?  Are you improving versus your competitors? If not, maybe it’s time to question whether it’s time to move on from SEO and either take a different approach or look at alternative marketing companies. 

Note about Cityline Websites Ltd

Cityline Websites is committed to looking after our clients’ best interests.  If we don’t feel SEO is right for you, we won’t recommend it.  If we think Ads or social media is a better option, we’ll let you know. Every industry and every situation is different.  Talk to us.  Let us help you decide.  Contact Us any time.


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