You know, this thing called SEO is more than a marketing channel.
It often acts as a channel that helps to get a site in a healthy state, and to keep it in a healthy state.
Today, I want to go over how SEO contributes to a site’s health, and why, once again, it should be seen as the most important channel to have when you have a website.
So, the moment a site becomes live it begins to attract attention.
You have crawlers, or should I say mascots, that aim to discover the site and present it to people seeking what the site has to offer.
The longer the site stays active, the more attention it receives.
Along with all the benefits of this, comes the threats.
There are a variety of threats a site faces, whether they be server side threats, on-page threats, or indeed, off-page threats.
All the threats a site faces compromises its visibility in the SERPs.
And this is why site threats catches the attention of SEOs.
You see, there are several things that can, and do, affect a site’s SEO.
I’ve said it before, the majority of issues SEOs face are caused by departments outside of SEO – inadvertently, due to an unawareness of how one’s actions on a site impacts the site’s SEO.
Let’s look at a server hack, for example.
If your server becomes hacked, how would this affect your SERP visibility?
Well, search engines aim to show the most appropriate information to their users when they search for it.
A site, having had its server hacked, compromises its content.
As a result, the site’s credibility, in the eyes of search engines, becomes compromised.
Would a search engine show results from a site when the site may contain a virus of some sort?
Would a search engine go-ahead and recommend the site to its users?
Would a search engine rank a site in its top 10 results for any keyword the site is relevant for?
It would not!
What is a search engine likely to do, instead?
Un-rank the site.
Not deindex, the site – they won’t remove it from their index.
What they would do is limit its visibility, especially for terms the site ranked highly for.
Now, SEO isn’t for shit and giggles.
The implications of something like this is HUGE.
Your traffic will be affected.
Your conversions will be affected.
Your revenue will be affected.
Having a healthy website is serious business for SEOs.
SEO isn’t just keywords and rankings. It has a clear contribution to revenue.
A contribution that I believe needs to be highlighted in boards in businesses.
On a business level, SEO is seen as far as key metrics – rankings, for example.
When we talk metrics, it’s sometimes rather convenient not to realise what’s at stake.
Associate SEO with revenue and the business pays attentions.
Site health is important to SEO because it impacts revenue – not just rankings.
This is why SEOs are very interested in server logs.
I once had a Dev guy ask me ‘what the hell does server logs have to do with SEO…?’
Many things, my friend. Many things.
The server logs of a site provide SEOs with additional insights to both optimise and protect the site.
This protection is to avoid jeopardizing the site’s ability to generate revenue.
Now, this protection isn’t just limited to the site, the CMS, and/or the server the site runs off of.
Site health is also dependent on being able to protect the site from other sites that engage with it.
And by this, I’m referring to backlinks.
Backlinks are important for a site but can be a major threat to a site.
It’s another avenue where a site can be attacked – through its backlinks.
Maintaining a healthy link profile is so important, there is a business for this work, alone.
Many companies are now seeing how valuable this work is.
The longer a site has been around for, the more essential it is to have this area of SEO covered.
I know of a few companies that have had to suffer the repercussions of not having this covered.
They, unfortunately, learned the hard way.
Any company who’s been hit by Penguin would tell you how valuable backlink auditing is.
It’s not just for improving the visibility of targeted keyword.
It’s to prevent the entire website from losing its visibility in the SERPs. The entire site!
You see, there was a time in SEO where only individual pages, or even sections of a site, would be impacted by poor site health.
Those days are long gone, and won’t be coming back.
Poor site health affects the entire site.
This folks, is what makes SEO a hell of a channel.
It’s not just wielded to improve website revenue. It’s wielded to protect a site’s ability to generate revenue.
How much revenue can your site generate when you no longer have a site?
This may sound extreme, but it’s real. Site threats can ruin your site.
SEO helps to keep your site.
To keep it functioning, running.
To keep it being able to make the business money.
Money, which contributes to your salary.
Do you see the business value of SEO…?
