What if you built a web site for your business and nobody showed up?
Do you think that would be an example of marketing dollars that were well spent?
My answer to that second question might surprise you. I’d say that those dollars probably were well spent. But I’ll attach a huge IF to that answer.
Here’s the more complete answer.
Those dollars are in fact well spent IF you do something to help improve your dismal traffic situation.
The site is already there and you can build on that foundation. Otherwise, if you do nothing, you’ve just dumped money down a hole and you probably won’t see it again.
WGSA Needs Web Presence Help
Now Savannah is a relatively small market and WGSA is a smaller TV station.
But point in fact, they have a very nice web site. It is pretty. It has simple but catchy navigation. It is branded well with their network. Since they are a TV station so they have lots of video content.
All good stuff.
The trouble is they are hard to find. Google WGSA CW13 and you don’t get them. Try just their call letters wgsa and you have to look 4 pages deep before you find their site.
Unless there is some well established organization out there that happens to use the same letters in their initials, I don’t see where there’s any reason why every TV and radio station shouldn’t come up first on a search for their call letters. Those station identifiers are unique, and they belong to businesses that are in the communications industry. If the don’t come up right near the top, that’s a big problem in my book.
The surest way to find a web site in Google is to search the actual domain name. However they barely make the front page when you put theirs in.
They’ve got a beautiful house. In a horrible location.
What is the mantra we always hear about real estate value? Location, location, location. That’s where the value is.
The internet is the same.
You can have a simple, ordinary web site. If it is easy for folks to find it, positioned in such a way that people are drawn to it, then it can still have tons of traffic.
The opposite is true as well. Take a brilliantly beautiful web site chock full of great stuff that everyone should want to see, but make the site hard to find and no one will ever see it.
How many people are going to visit someplace they can’t find?
Possible Solutions
One thing a business owner can do when they find themselves in this situation is to go spend a ton of money to get someone to optimize their site for the search engines. If the search engines can find your web site, the people will be able to as well.
SEO is a big industry. It can be difficult to achieve because the search engines regularly change their algorithms so there’s a little bit of the “trying to hit a moving target” involved.
Of course my idea for a solution is to implement some sort of blogging associated with their station. Hiring an SEO expert is not a bad idea. But it is a one-dimensional solution.
However blogging will help them achieve SEO as a natural by-product and accomplish so much more.
And they are in the Entertainment Industry! A blogger’s paradise. Some of the top blogs out there are entertainment blogs. (And they are among some of the top direct income producers too!)
What do you think? Would adding blogging help the web presence of a local TV station?
Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Important Note: Please know that I would never call out a business like this on my own. I’ve been given specific permission from the TV station write about their situation to graphically illustrate a point for them.
