In a recent blog I explained why your website is your most important marketing asset. At the time my site ranked very badly in Google for the keywords someone would use to search for an accountant in Chester.

So with the help of Will Robinson (who gave my website a thorough MOT) I started a exercise to improve my rankings for four keywords by improving things like load speed, structure and backlinks.

This process doesn’t yield instant results; it takes time for Google to update its ranking data and, of course, your competitors (or some of them) will be doing the same thing.

For the keyword ‘Chester Accountants’ my ranking improved from 105 in October (before the changes) to 19. The goal, which we are well on the way to achieving, is to rank in the top 10.

Now clearly ranking in Google isn’t the be-all and end-all in marketing terms. In fact it is only the beginning. Your website needs to have great content and calls to action, but showing up well in the first place does matter.

So how well does your website compare against your competitors? Are you where you want to be?

If not maybe a website MOT is what you need.

To your success.

Noel Guilford

PS When I wrote my earlier blog some readers thought I’d gone into the website business, which is not the case. But as business advisers we talk regularly to our clients about their marketing and how they measure its effectiveness, and their Google ranking is one such measure.