In the U.S., we still have about a month of Spring left to go. Everything is green and growing. If you’ve had a website for more than a year and you’ve been actively working on it, you know websites are a living thing. They grow, much like a living plant. I’m going to use a lot of planty-type terms in this post – just think “Spring” and go with it.
Tending Your Organic SEO Garden
What do plants and SEO have to do with each other? Alot, actually.
As I worked in my garden yesterday, I was amazed by how much what I was doing could be compared to caring for a website. Everything I did could be compared, in some way, to the actions of organic SEO marketing. From transplanting to digging up weeds, you can optimize your garden or tend your website using the same terminology and similar actions.
Organic Gardening vs Organic SEO
Organic, when applied to farming methods, means produced or involving production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial agents. It’s interesting how well this fits the term organic SEO as well. “Organic SEO” means without the use of artificial agents, such as Pay Per Click, otherwise known as paid ads. It also removes actions that are more shady, such as artificially increasing Twitter followers by paying for them.
The Roots of Your Website
Plants send out roots to get nourishment from the ground. The more roots, the more avenues of nourishment. How many roots does your website have?
In site terms, roots could be considered any area of contact with potential clients/visitors that can be nourished. Your blog and social accounts are two examples:
- A blog is a new offshoot, reaching out to people in your voice. It helps bring people in and keep the website alive.
- Social accounts reach out like branches. The more you feed them, the more active they’ll become. You may prune some–getting rid of fake accounts here, getting rid of social accounts that aren’t active there–but they grow and build the community around your website.
In short, a root is anything that reaches out from you—your site, your company, etc—and draws in the public.
Feeding Your Website (Creating Fertile Ground)
Ground that’s fertile is producing or capable of producing abundant vegetation or crops. How could this be turned into something for your site?
Fertilizer, or food, comes in many forms, including manure. The same can be said for your website. I’ve often called social marketing “feeding the beast,” as the Level343 team can tell you. -But it’s more than just social.
Think about “abundance”. Think about a rich experience. What can you do to or with your site, blog, and social accounts that can create a richer experience? How can you go above and beyond what you’ve been doing?
- Is it time to try another social service?
- Can you involve your audience better with videos or podcasts?
- Does your site need an overhaul?
- Are there gaps in your content offerings that can provide more information?
Take the time to be serious about creating a better user experience for your visitors. Make it a pleasure for them to visit your site, no matter what they’re doing there. If it’s been awhile, it may be time for a content and website audit to get a firm understanding of where your site is, and where it can go.
Weeding Your Website
You’re going to get weeds, especially if you’re actively tending your website. Weeds are, among other things:
Old blog posts with outdated information
Fix: Write a new post about the topic and 301 redirect the old to the new OR
Broken links and images
Fix: Update the links/images with either the correct path or new, similar links/images.
Toxic backlinks
Fix: Keep an eye on your link profile and either remove or (if you can’t remove) disavow toxic backlinks (such as if you find out a casino is linking to your laundromat website).
Is Your Site Dying or Thriving?
How is your site doing? How often do you feed it? Do you do things to keep it going and your audience engaged?
Remember, a plant can’t go very long without water and nourishment. Even a cactus needs water occasionally. Your website can’t either.
So, what kind of shape is your site in? Is it dying, going unnourished with little-to-no activity, or is it an active, growing website with a flowering community?
If your website is hanging on by a thread and needs new life breathed into it, contact Level343. We’ve been providing organic SEO since long before the term came about. Join us in turning your website into something green and thriving.