5 Reasons Your SEO Efforts Are Not Driving Results
SEO is an integral part of a marketing campaign which works to provide visibility to a website in organic search results. The importance of your SEO efforts can be gauged by the fact that 70% of the links clicked by the users on SERPs are organic links propelled to the top of the rankings by powerful SEO. In addition, 75% of the users never go further than the first page of the search results.
Therefore, as an e-commerce entrepreneur or a small business owner, you must be aware of the prowess of SEO for your business’s visibility and subsequent revenue generation.
However, despite implementing SEO on your website, if you are not generating the expected results and your website has not made it to the coveted front page of Google search results, a number of reasons can be attributed to this.
You are not investing enough resources
Excellent SEO that yields prominent results, with use of competitive keywords, can be costly. Often startups select an SEO firm based on the price package they offer instead of choosing one that is the most suitable for their business niche. And this can set the company up for failure in the long run.
It is crucial to remember that if the cost of an SEO firm is too good to be true or if they are promising quick results, they are probably not the best in their field of work. This is because establishing SEO that reaches out to targeted clients requires extensive research and planning. Moreover, it is a lengthy process which can take up to 12 months before producing any notable results.
Effective SEO efforts need investment. Devise a budget that takes into consideration the duration of the process. In addition, while it is good to be ambitious about your business growth, when it comes to SEO, it is recommended to set realistic goals and achievable timelines.
Remember, SEO gets more powerful with time, it just needs patience.
You are not using the right keywords
Keywords are an essential part of successful SEO. If your company is part of an overcrowded niche such as the food or apparel industry, the use of single-word keywords, instead of long tail keywords, can make your company invisible among the plethora of similar businesses. It is also important to note that keywords do not function like hashtags; you cannot use popular keywords to gain greater visibility, on the contrary, it will make your website even more unnoticeable.
On the other hand, if you use keywords that are too vague or unspecific to your field, you may also lose out on securing a higher ranking.
Ideally you should integrate the best keywords in your content, which are neither too specific and yields thousands of results nor too broad that your potential customers are unable to find you.
You are not targeting a specific consumer base
It goes without saying that your SEO strategy should revolve around your target customers. You need to show astute understanding of what your consumer base is looking for when they require your product or service.
Your site may be placed on the top tier of the rankings but if those ranking are not perused by your target audience, your positioning is futile. Similarly, if your target audience is searching for your website, but you are not part of the listings, you lose out on generating potential revenues. In such circumstances, you need to reevaluate your SEO techniques.
You can also check your bounce rate; if a user visits your website but leaves without scrolling past the homepage they might have landed on the wrong website. If your website has a high bounce rate you may need to adjust your SEO strategy.
You are not using the right tools
Often, businesses fail to realize that websites need to be tuned periodically to ensure that they are optimized in accordance to the search engines’ algorithms. The initial optimization which was applied when the website was launched may not be relevant anymore, lowering your position on the SERPs.
Moreover, you may be unaware of your website’s faulty links, problematic navigation pages or sluggish load speed which can be driving away potential customers.
To tackle all these issues, you should employ a competent website auditor which analyzes a comprehensive list of components whose malfunctioning may be having detrimental effects on your website’s performance. SEO audit also helps to quantify your website’s search rankings, user traffic and bounce rates, and provides you with valuable insights about the adjustments and improvements that need to be implemented.
You are not implementing a continuous progressive approach
One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that it is a one-off process that does not require recurring evaluation. On the contrary, SEO becomes most effective when it is revised and maintained continuously.
It is important to realize that search engines are being optimized constantly in a bid to offer the most relevant results to the users’ queries. What might have worked previously for your website may not be relevant now, diminishing your website’s rankings. Many gimmicks such as keyword stuffing, directory listings and paid links which worked previously can now make you eligible for penalties.
Therefore, you need to practice constant vigilance and continuously make efforts to nurture your SEO strategy so that you can scale the search listings to secure a higher ranking or continue to hold a respectable position.
SEO techniques which are sustainable and have notable impact on your website’s rankings are constructed through constant efforts and with the help of a competent team. You just have to be patient and persistent in your strategies.
Image: Author’s Own
Author Bio:
Audrey Throne is a mother of a 2-year old and a professional blogger by choice. Throne is passionate about health, technology and management and blogs frequently on these topics. Find her on Twitter: @audrey_throne.
