A recent HubSpot survey reported that 60% of businesses say their highest-quality leads arrive as a direct result of their SEO and blog content. Given that SEO is naturally time-consuming or costly, (often both), getting poor-quality results from it can be frustrating.
This article is going to help you identify why your SEO strategy isn’t working and help you correct it. We’re going to hopefully help you start enjoying increased website traffic, and increased sales as a consequence.
Why isn’t my website ranking?
It’s common knowledge that the reason why most websites don’t rank highly on Google search is due to their lack of authority, trust, and relevancy. This means that if your SEO isn’t working, it’s extremely likely there is something about your website that indicates to Google you are not an authority in your industry. Not just that. Your website also potentially isn’t to be trusted, and the content you provide may not be relevant.
Google doesn’t want to provide a bad service to their customers, but your website indicates to them, that by ranking you highly, that’s exactly what they’ll be doing. Expect to be buried deep down in the search, where you can’t harm Google’s reputation as a premium search provider. You will stay hidden until you make the necessary changes.
Reasons for your website indicating a lack of authority, trust, and relevancy are many and varied. These include technical website formatting errors, optimisation problems, and providing website content that is appealing to your target audience.
Let’s look at an example of irrelevant content: It’s unlikely that women in their 20s will be interested in buying a facelift. But, if you’re using the keyword ‘lip fillers’ on a skin tightening page, then you’re showing lip filler customers something that doesn’t interest them. They will vote with their feet. They will immediately leave the misleading page and Google will be watching this drama unfold. The quicker traffic leaves a page, the more Google will think you are not providing a good service.
Conversely, if you are dangling sexy new lips at lip filler fans, (and you’ve hit the technical SEO Goldilocks zone as well obviously), not only will they find the relevant page, they’ll read all the content, and click on the useful links you have provided for them too. Google will see this too. And judge you much more favourably. All Google wants is to promote valuable information to relevant parties.
SEO done correctly is a goldmine. Let’s take a look at 3 common SEO problems to see which ones you may have accidentally embraced.
1. Your SEO is out of date
Google is constantly updating its algorithms to provide continual improvement for its users. If you’re not frequently researching these updates and implementing relevant changes to your SEO strategy, you could be left behind.
Worse than that. Persisting on outdated practices can actually harm your Google ranking. If you’re still keyword stuffing, or you haven’t done anything about all those spammy links pointing at your website that you paid a link-building company to add 10 years ago, Google will penalise you. They’ll also penalise you if your website was built years ago and isn’t optimised for mobile search, or isn’t connected to any social media accounts. These are all red flags. The routes to your website need to be up-to-date and your website needs to be up-to-date.
If your website isn’t ranking, and your competitors are beating you in search, then their websites are indicating to Google that they are more of an authority within your industry than you. Don’t let them get away with it! Do you know how many people look at the second page of the search results? According to a Backlinko survey, it’s just 0.6%!
If your SEO team (or you) are using old practices, or perhaps you don’t fully understand how it all works, step away from the keyboard. Instead, give us a call. We’ll identify what is causing your specific SEO problems and either advise you on how to fix them or fix them for you.
2. Your SEO expectations are unreasonable
Are you worried that each road to your website is looking like an abandoned mountain pass, despite making a hearty stab at updating your SEO a couple of weeks ago? SEO strategies can take a long time to bear fruit (or traffic.) The worst thing you could do now is pulling the plug before it’s had a chance to get going! Especially if you’re trying to compete in a highly competitive space.
Competitive spaces will make your SEO efforts slower. You need to be patient. If your SEO is being delivered by experts, or you know what you’re doing, then a rumbling convoy of mountain traffic is just around the corner.
It’s good to record your progress to both keep your SEO expectations realistic, and your results measured (so you can tweak your actions at a later date for maximum customer impact.) Your SEO strategy should involve planning your SEO goals, projecting them, and benchmarking them. If you’re not doing these things, then how can you know what you should be expecting to happen in terms of SEO-driven leads and sales?
The best thing you can do to speed up getting successful results from an SEO campaign based around a competitive keyword is to target something more niche. Make niche SEO efforts successful fast, and then redirect that traffic into your competitive space using a carefully positioned link. Get their interest in vampire facials, before directing them towards the Botox and fillers that they really want!
Another misguided belief when it comes to SEO is that ranking high on Google is free. You’ll be paying for your SEO in staff costs, and your own time which could be monetised more directly, or via ads, however, you get there. So, make peace with yourself and agree to agree. SEO is never free.
Finally, consider your site speed. You know it’s a bit slow, but you’re okay with that because once the images download, they’re going to do the selling for you! And you should know. You paid through the nose for those images! Wrong. Studies have shown that at least half of Internet users expect a site to load in under two seconds. If your site isn’t doing that, it looks amateur and trustworthy, and it’s going to disappear into the Google wilderness. Changed your mind? Need to speed up without losing your content? Give us a call.
3. Bad SEO customer relations
Whether you’re targeting the wrong audience, or speaking to the right audience all wrong, your website content and how it’s presented, is extremely important. You can’t simply bung up a blog post about your breakfast and hope for the best. Unless of course, you are in the breakfast industry!
To truly understand your customer, you need to know how they search. If you’ve splashed out on the ultimate portable, lightweight, laser hair removal device, that is making your life joyful because you can carry it between practice rooms, don’t describe its dimensions to your end users. That’s not what they’re searching for.
They will probably be searching for ‘hair gone permanently’ and ‘painless waxing’! Plus they will definitely be searching for ‘laser hair removal’ which opens up a new problem. This is a very competitive keyword. Target words that are too competitive and you’ll be overtaken by the global top 1% in cosmetic clinics with their Harley Street size budgets. Too niche, and you’re not going to grow at a rate that will make your SEO costs justifiable.
Our advice to you would be don’t get bogged down in SEO tactics. Write copy that a human audience will enjoy reading, but optimised enough for the Google crawlers to take notice. And while we’re at it, beware of the latest lazy marketers’ trend of commissioning a robot to write your content for you. AI can create a perfect article about the product you want to promote. It will look like it has been written by a professional human, but not a professional writer. Its generic nature can do you more harm than good.
Don’t forget that trying to impress Google is only part of the battle. Trying to impress the people who will actually spend money with you is more important. If you’re going to give customers the content they want to read (blog posts) and watch (videos), they will naturally want to see more from you. Google will observe you appealing to your audience and rank you accordingly. Not only that, but if you make a connection with a potential customer, you’ve got them in the right frame of mind to buy from you.
Creating Search Engine Optimisation – Friendly Content
In this day and age, if you are implementing an SEO strategy that involves you guessing how potential customers are going to behave as they reach your website, you’re doing it all wrong. We have so much data on one another, that instead of guesswork, businesses should be anticipating their customer’s next move.
Loved content ranks high on Google because that’s what people want. Get your SEO right, and your content will be loved. But don’t beat yourself up over not getting it right. You’re not a Google engineer. You’re running your business with SEO implementation or management as only one of your daily responsibilities. Let us help you out.
We are a leading SEO provider in the aesthetic and dental industries. We will perform a technical audit of your website and work out exactly why the world isn’t knocking at your door. We’ll identify gaps in your organisation and content strategy, as well as uncover any website faults. We’ll ensure that Google and relevant Google users can find you, not to mention keep them enthralled when they do.
Our SEO has the potential open digital purses and help you grow your business. Want to sort out your SEO problems this season? Give us a call.
If you’re looking for more information you may find out support pages useful – Marketing Not Working & Website Doesn’t Perform