At first glance, there’s a huge difference between an e-commerce site selling heavy machinery, a cooking blog packed with delicious recipes that make me feel like a drooling puppy, or an internet marketing site offering advice on how to build a better business.
However, if you think about it, we all want the same.
We want for our perfectly targeted customer to find our site, like it, take the action we want them to take (buy, sign up, join, etc), and come back for more.
Telling their friends would be the icing on the cake.
In this blog audit I did for Colin and Duncan Gray from LawnsForYou.com, I will show you the key points you need to evaluate when looking at your own site – whatever the niche.
LawnsForYou.com
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The keynotes from the video:
1. Overall “Stickability”
Make your traffic take action – and make sure it’s not clicking back to wherever they came from.
To achieve that, your site should, among other things:
- Be visually appealing (very subjective, but that’s what split testing is for);
- Be clear on what your site is about (both in the title and tagline);
- Give few options.
2. Calls to Action
Determine what your most important call to action is and focus on funneling your readers towards that goal.
It’s OK to have a secondary goal, but don’t spread yourself thin.
3. Know Your Reader!
What sources generate most of your readership?
Offline customers? Search engines? Paid ads?
Gear your offer towards that specific customer.
SEO Analysis
1. Google is at it again
Yes, Google is saying “Be afraid!” yet again.
They are in the process of implementing many changes that makes us all question if our site would be the next one to tank under Google’s iron glove.
Here are some good reads on what’s going on if you care to learn more (and you should since this might affect any and all traffic you are getting or would like to get from Google):
1. Google is coming down on blog networks:
- ALN lost 5,297 Domains in 1 week (Hat tip for the link: Chris Fong)
- R.I.P BuildMyRank – BuildMyRank.com
- Private Blog Networks Getting De-Indexed? – Linkbuildr.com
- OMG! The Sky Is Falling!?!?! – PotPieGirl.com
2. “Over-Optimization” Penalty
- Too Much SEO? Google’s Working On An “Over-Optimization” Penalty For That – SearchEngineLand.com
- 2012 SXSW Transcript with Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, & Duane Forrester – RobSnell.com
What am I going to do about all this?
Nothing.
Keep my nose as clean as I can, continue to write epic content, build relationships with other bloggers (thus doing more natural one way link building and increasing referral traffic), and adapt to the changes as they come.
Tools I Used during the Blog Audit
There are really only two internet marketing tools I currently use for all my keyword, competition, and backlink research:
- SEMRush – an awesome tool that allows me to find out what keywords I am currently ranking for (the only one I know of that does that), what my competitors are ranking for, and find great ideas of keywords in demand.
See why I love SEMRush and how I use it to increase SEO traffic for Traffic Generation Cafe, read my SEMRush review.
- Market Samurai - despite all the latest controversy, MS still remains my SEO tool of choice; mainly for SEO competition and backlink checking.
See why in my latest Market Samurai review.
Marketing Takeaway
There’s always room for improvement for ANY site.
There are always things that could work better.
There’s always more money to be made with our businesses.
Colin: I hope you found this audit helpful and will put my tips to good use.
All other readers: ditto.
And if you want a chance for me to audit YOUR site, don’t forget to join TrafficGenerationCafe.com community. Now.
PS Do share this post with your social media circles!
Image credit: incredible photography by Kira Rozanov
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