I guess I should just admit to myself that no matter how many Daily Golden Nuggets I write and no matter how much industry exposure I achieve, the importance of all this internet marketing website stuff is just not understood by the masses.Okay. Fine. I get it. Many website owners do not have the time or the inclination to learn about the technical things that will make a website better. We each have our own limitations. Although I'm an engineer with a technical understanding of mechanics, the only thing I know about my car is how to check and add the fluids.
The air conditioner in my Toyota Celica has been broken for years. Hot air comes out of the vent all year long. Whenever the car is moving, hot air comes out of the vents. Over the last 7 days the weather here in New Jersey has been around 90 degrees and muggy, and I've been careful not to drive anywhere except in a necessity. A few days ago, my stepmother was insisting that my car needed a recharge and she even offered to show me how to recharge the freon while visiting on Independence Day.
I declined her offer because I'm aware that that's one of my limitations, and I just don't want to learn how my car works on the inside. Luckily my auto mechanic is a short walk from my office and I simply pay her to fix it on a moment's notice.
Truthfully I've just been unwilling to spend money on fixing my air conditioner because the heat usually doesn't bother me. My car is not essential for work and I'm the only one who suffers, so it's not a big deal.
Besides the air conditioner, I will pay to have my car service when needed, and sometimes I just bring it for a checkup before long journeys.
I'm sharing this story about myself and my car because in many ways it mirrors the relationship that many jewelers have with their websites. The average jeweler will pay to have their website built and maintained, but many will not pay for the extra search engine optimization that could make their website work better.
You probably would not want to buy a new car without air conditioning and then you will probably get it fixed right away when it breaks. Most people do not like the hot weather as much as I do.
Compare this to the process of building a website. When you're building a website you should be thinking about search engine optimization (SEO) as a standard built-in feature rather than an afterthought. The process of SEO should start with the first day when planning your new website, but most jewelers only think about it weeks or months after their website is launched.
It's usually easy to recognize when you are having car trouble, but it's not so easy to recognize when your website is having trouble. Your website won't make a strange noise, and it won't have a red light on the dashboard. Most jewelers don't even realize their website is broken until business starts to slump.
The process of SEO is much more than recharging your freon, putting gas in your car, and checking your oil. You can't simply change a belt inside your website like you can change a fan belt inside your car.
The bottom line of today's Daily Golden Nugget is that you need to realize that a fan belt is to your car as SEO is to your website. If you can grasp that analogy, then you will start to understand the importance of the entire website optimization process.
It doesn't matter if you understand how your website works "under the hood" just as long as you realize that you should be paying someone for routine website service just like you do for your car.
