Blog - Growth

One of the many performance requirements of a web site is the generation of traffic and visitors to the site.

This might seem quite obvious but isn't always a primary requirement.

However, when it is a primary requirement the development of traffic is not always a simple matter. One of the most difficult things to demonstrate is the concept of site growth. Clients often think that site design and its integrated search engine performance are matters of rote technique and should take place over night. Its often quite a challenge to communicate the concept of growth to a new customer, especially when you are talking about growth over significant time periods such as years. The fact is that most sites will start off very slowly.

A good example is a current client whose site is now 5 years old. For the first 3 years the site pottered around a very disappointing 170-200 hits a month. This is actually common not just with new sites but also with mature sites that simply don't have any management effort put into them. Over those years TWS carried out checks, tests and implemented changes and tweaks at all levels, including structural and content wise and then, bit by bit the site grew from 170 hits/month to about 1046 hits/month which is a significant increase.

In fact, this client had a new sales manager who they employed in conjunction with getting a website, the idea being that he would follow leads from the website. However, the sites traffic in the first months was very low and after maybe a year, the sales manager was let go. Whilst i would be guessing to say that the client was dissapointed when their site demonstrated low traffic levels, I think its a pretty safe bet to say that they are probably pretty happy with the level of enquiries now, and maybe now they could do well with employing a sales manager to handle the fresh enquiries.

Of course, total volumes are not always as useful as you might think. 400 hits/month might be plenty for a company in a specific market that has a relatively low job turn over whilst it could be nothing for a client with a high turnover requirement. For example, an architect might only need 1 job a month and so 400 hits would be great, but a cab company might find 400 hits/month is too low. However, once you get past the issues of relative scales, growth is a fairly clear cut process that can readily be communicated and understood. The graphic shows traffic levels from March 2014 when TWS first started keeping archive records of monthly traffic volumes through to July 2016.

Most sites don't take 3 years to gear up, but 1-2 years is not uncommon.

One reason for this is that Google holds domains back, or at least that is my opinion. No one really knows how Google works, but I think its a fair guess to say that Google is cautious of new domains. In particular .co.uk domains. The essential premise here is that I think its pretty clear that Google marks up new domains, ie domains that have just been purchased, as new, and treats them differently. Whilst many people might claim that this is so that a reputation can be developed, I think you'll find the simple reason is Google is working on the premise that a lot of short term SEO strategies are based on buying a new domain and putting content on it. Sometimes quite considerable amounts of content. Essentially sites just appear and in many cases they are designed specifically to dominate Google search results. To get around this I think that Google holds back domains, especially in their first years.

This is understandable to some extent. Especially in the lower levels of business where the cost of entry is minimal and often free. As the curator of County Industry, the online industrial business directory I see time and time again domains submitted that are simply fishing for traffic for either a parent enterprise or for fielding enquiries for a network of real customers. For example, sites selling boilers or home maintenance services, man and van services or of course web design. These sites are submitted, often with significant content, but in two years time after the site has failed to generate sales the domains are allowed to lapse and the sites vanishes. As such, its pretty clear that if Google wants to route out these bogus sites or prospective business endeavours then it needs to wait 2 year minimum. Its as simple as that. Perhaps its worth emphasising that a .co.uk domain costs about £15 and in general is paid up for 2 years. That means that is a person has an idea to create a business, maybe in financial consulting, the domain they buy will exist for a minimum of two years. Google cant tell if they are still active or keen to develop a real business for at least 2 years.

However, this is not a hard and fast rule. I have seen brand new sites develop significant traffic from the very start, its not impossible, but I think its fair to say that in 2016 that is a little less to be expected.

But its not entirely a waiting game.

Quite often the reasons why a site is not performing are obscure and looking for angles to develop the site are not always immediately apparent. As such, the principle approach is regular management and monitoring. Sometimes simple SEO techniques might simply not be in place through accidental oversight. A page needs tweaking, metatags or canoconical strings needs restructuring and sites maps need refreshing. Dynamic content is often a big part in the whole process and understanding what has and hasn't been indexed in Google.

A person once inferred to me that any site given an infinite number of changes and tweaks could in theory be put at the top of Google. If sites were complex signed codes in hexadecimal, the challenge would be to create the 10000 long string key that fitted the lock. Its complex. But in theory, constant modifications should, like trying to pick a lock, open the door.

As such, at the end of the day, growth can be demonstrated as a time dependent function that needs to be considered over real time and not on the spot when a client gets a new web site. For example, a client might ask of a new web design company, IS THE SITE OPTIMISED and the web design company might say YES, and that would be the end of the story. But its not, its only the beginning. The question is, will that web design company be there to monitor the performance and compare it against the expected performance in 2-5 years time? Mostly the answer is NO.

TWS has years of experience and across that period has often declared rather excitedly at the final meeting that this is not the end, but this is the beginning. Maybe this needs a little explaining as its not as clear cut as you might think. Essentially, TWS will often sit in a meeting with a client. They will say they want a site and sign some terms. They think that is the beginning. There is a lot of activity and work, a site is conceived, and at this stage the client is usually quite involved. The site gets made and the customer pays the remaining money, and at that stage the client often considers that the end of it. However, the secret behind successful web design is that that initial design phase is not that critical. You will get a web site, it will have pictures and words, some people will like it and others wont. What im saying is that that first stage, the design and build is actually the simplest part of the process and to some extent the part that a customer should not put all their available energy into to the detriment of later stages. Its after the site is complete that concerted thought is required. Once the site is built and launched, thats when the game begins.

Now that's not to say that design and build should be a laissez-faire matter. Its important, especially the concept of design for performance that takes place at the design stage. The point being that the real effort needs to take place during the growth phase, those 2-5 years where a site goes from being repressed by Google to truly flung to the top of all required search engine results.

I think a closing point is would be to reflect on the difference between traffic and growth. Many people will simply look at the traffic volumes for that week or month or even day, which I consider a tactical consideration. However, to look strategically you need to look at that traffic over time and consider growth. Some sites demonstrate no growth at all, they might have 400 hits/month at a steady rate over years. This is as useful as knowing wither the site is in growth or decline. The point here is that this blog is highlighting the concept of growth, ie rate of change over time and not actual traffic volumes, or rate, in isolation. If course static traffic levels are important but growth is more telling.

As a site owner you might have Google Analytics. This is actually a good tool for measuring Growth. TWS does not base its management services on Google Analytics for a wider number of reasons. However, just having Google Analytics is not the end of the story. For example, you can ask many sites owners if they monitor their site with Google Analytics and they will say YES, THAT THEIR WEB DESIGN COMPANY SET IT UP. But if you ask then what their traffic levels are, they don't know, if you ask them to log in they cant, they don't know the username and password. One of the major problems with Google Analytics in the primary sense is that its used as a solution to the question of web site management, and put in place but its never used. The point being that Google Analytics could be as great as a SEO platform with a time machine function, but if its never used then its pointless.

As such, to really get a grip on growth you need constant management and site reviews over time. Once you understand that you will be better placed to understand your own requirements from a web design company and a web site in general. For example, if you were dealing with a web design company, you could do well by replacing the question, WILL IT LOOK GREAT with HOW WILL IT PERFORM IN TWO YEARS TIME. Quite often, a company will not even be equipped to answer that question. Its actually a sad fact that most web design companies shoot and scoot. That means they create a website and that's the end of the relationship unless you come back for another service whether that's an upgrade or some SEO etc. But they leave the site with the customer. The customer ends up with a paid server space with their site on it and quite often don't even know how to log into it and commonly have no idea how well its performing.

If you find this perspective on web site growth interesting and would like to find out how TWS can help you grow your business, whether you have a mature site or a new project, feel free to call.