Why your website wants an agency retainer

Steve: So Laura, I want to ask you some questions about, we've got websites and retainers that we run for clients, but why would a website always need a retainer? Or what's the difference when it has a retainer? Maybe just first of all actually, is there something you could say about what the difference is, results-wise or commercially with having a retainer to back up the website versus not having one?

Laura: Yeah, so if you've got a professional website and a website that's performing well, but you've not got the campaigns to drive those leads to the website, you're never going to see that optimum performance from the website because you're not getting the high-quality traffic in. You're not using it to the maximum, you're not optimising it in a way that means you're getting the most out of it. So, if you're using high-quality campaigns that are bringing in good lead traffic and good quality traffic, you're going to see more results from your website because it's performing as best it can because it's got all the the parts, all the cogs are turnning all, the cogs are in place for that website to perform to its best.

Steve: Sure yeah, so maybe like we might have a shop but if we don't promote the shop, you're going to get a limited result from the shop.

Laura: Exactly that, it's exposure. The campaigns are giving your website, that you've spent money on and invested time in, it's giving that website exposure and the chance to perform to its best ability.

Steve: And then when we, I always think, when we're rebuilding or redesigning a website for somebody, it's a big project for them, it's a project they might only do every 3, 4 or 5 years. So, the value of the asset that you create with the website is relatively significant for a lot of companies. What impact does the retainer have on that asset then? Because it means, if we've got a website that's got a lifespan of let's say 4 years, 5 years, there must be a difference if we've got a team working on that site through all that time versus if we haven't.

Laura: Yeah, so obviously, aside from just getting more for your investment into the website, you'll also get a longer lifespan for it. So there's, if you've got a marketing retainer in place, there's always someone working on that website to keep it performing at its best. So for our clients, we would always have the health score for the website at 99% or above, and that doesn't drop. So you might find that some websites are performing less than that and the health score has dropped. If they haven't got someone on a retainer, they're not working on that all
the time, so they're not keeping the score healthy

Steve: And I can picture the health score because we look at them in our dashboard, don't we?

Laura: Yeah, we do.

Steve: How would you just, not everyone will know the health score. So how do we actually assess? What's the different sort of scores we see on websites as well?

Laura: Yeah, so for a website to be performing at its best and bringing in traffic and page speeds and things, all those sorts of factors that would make the website not perform to its best. Over time, without updates and optimisation, those health scores can drop. So if they drop to sort of 60 or 70, you're going to start seeing an impact in terms of traffic and leads. So it's important to keep that website performing at its best, doing technical updates, doing fixes, SEO, constant optimisation like that, so that the website's performing all the time.

Steve: I see and this would be, we measure it with a software?

Laura: Yeah, so we use Ahrefs.

Steve: And then there's Google.

Laura: Yeah, there's Search Console for Google and you can use Core Web Vitals so that you can check the scores on your website on various pieces of software.

Steve: So if I've got a website, it's going to perform better if I've got an appropriate retainer with it. What's the ingredients that fit together then to make a site? What's the takeaway, I guess, for anybody watching?

Laura: So you've got your website, which is optimised and performing well, you've got campaigns that are driving quality traffic to those website, but before you have both of those things, you need a strategy in place. So that completes the triangle, if you will, because without a strategy, you won't get focused campaigns and driven campaigns, and you won't get a high performance website. So you need all three of those things in place to get success from your website.

Steve: So those three ingredients equals performance.

Laura: Yes, without a doubt.