So? Is it Working 4?

It’s numbers time! 4 weeks in.

1. 147 (-20) Organic searches over the last 30 days
2. 54 (-3) Percentage derived from organic searches over the last 30 days divided by the same period a year previous
3. 14 (+2) Position of “large cottages devon” in Google search
4. 23 (+8) Position of “stag party houses” in Google search
5. 67 (+5) Position of “40th birthday party ideas” in Google search
6. 43 (+7) Position of “50th birthday party ideas” in Google search
7. 50 (+9) Position of “party house with pool” in Google search
8. 12.2M (0) Alexa rank
9. 1.8 (0) Moz rank
10. 18 (0) Domain Authority
11. 22 (0) Trust Flow
12. 18 (0) Citation Flow
13. 171 (0) External links in Google Search Console
14. 25 (0) Linking sites in Google Search Console

The values in brackets are the change from the original benchmarks of So? Is it Working 1? Positives are good news and what we are hoping for, negatives are not so good.

I think it might be a good time to address some of those calls from the back of the bus:

No, it’s not working, just give up so we can all go home!

Ok, I agree, these numbers do look a lot like last time. But (and I’m sure I have said this somewhere before) it’s early days. If there is an improvement at all it will be gradual and will occur in arrears of up to about six months. Additionally, this is a particularly quiet time of the year for our industry; people aren’t thinking about any holiday other than Christmas. January and February are our busiest months and I’m hoping to see some big changes in the numbers then.

Are we nearly there yet?

You might be thinking, ‘How much more can there be? Please, just make it stop!’ In fact, there can be a lot more. So, in my best newsreader’s voice, ‘Still to come:

• Good, Fresh Content
• Structured Data
• Airbnb & HomeAway
• The Blog
• AMP

to name but five.’ What are all these things of which you speak? Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out. But, I think in answer to the main question no, we are not nearly there and I’m inclined to think that we never will be. Every time I finish a particular task I become aware of new tasks to tackle and even if I should manage to exhaust the list, all the tasks already done will continue to require attention. So, we aren’t there yet – but we can get a lot closer!

Date of Activity: 22nd October 2018