USING THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Paul Carpenter 2nd November 2006
Paul Carpenter

You might have heard people saying something to the effect of a butterfly flaps it's wings over Hampstead Heath and it causes a hurricane in Florida.

Obviously, things aren't as simple as that, but its useful shorthand for understanding that a lot of small things can make a big difference. As well as our butterfly, other things contribute, like the spinning of the earth, the trade winds, mountains, all the hot-air spoken by marketing people and so on.

But if it isn't demonstrably true where it comes to butterflies and hurricanes, it certainly is true when it comes to marketing your website.

Changing your website's content alone won't make it a success. Nor will tweaking the coding. If you just concentrate on getting links it won’t make that much difference. And if all you do is just update your site frequently, you won't be buying that Carribean island for a while yet.

But, do all of those things (and a few dozen more) and you will really see a difference to your website's performance in the search rankings.

That's why we recommend to our clients that they don't treat marketing their site as a one-off exercise. If you try to do everything in a one-off splurge, it is too easy to focus in on one or two areas and lose sight of the other things around the site that can help. Constant involvement with a site over 6 months or more helps us to find all those weak points, and identify new ways to bring in targeted traffic.

So, if you're going to hire a marketing agency, make sure you remember that many things effect a site. Get a decent length contract in place, and get flapping!

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