These days, businesses spend large amounts of money on SEO in order to find potential customers online. However, SEO is more of an art than a science, and a poor quality SEO campaign will not increase search engine ranking. There are a few reasons why your SEO efforts may not be working as well as you’d like them to.
• You hired the wrong SEO company.
As with anything in business, you get what you pay for when you hire an SEO company. There are many companies online that offer SEO services for very small amounts of money. The problem with using these companies is that they will usually use outdated, automated methods that could hurt your company’s website instead of helping it. If you hire an SEO company, ask for a list of their previous clients and check references.
• You are building low quality links.
Many people who are new to SEO think that the number of links that point to a website will give the site better rank in the search engines. This was true in the past, but the Google algorithm has become much more advanced. These days, link quality is the most important factor in building a website’s rank. Make sure that all of your links come from reputable, related sites.
• You are not consistent in your SEO efforts.
SEO is a continual process, and companies that stop building links when they get to the top of Google will quickly see their ranking slide as others overtake them. With this, you must always make sure that you are building good links to your site. While very little is ever certain in the world of SEO, experts believe that the Google algorithm likes fresh links from quality sites.
• You are targeting the wrong keywords.
Some keywords are incredibly difficult to rank for. If your company sells things like health products, you will have an incredibly hard time getting to the top of the SERPs without doing proper research. Focus on keywords that your customers are looking for and avoid more general keywords. The competition is tough in many fields, and the best way to get search engine ranking is to find keywords that are easy to dominate in the results pages.
• You are focusing on ranking instead of conversions.
The ultimate goal of all SEO campaigns is to turn website visitors into paying customers. With this, business owners need to figure out the keywords that people search for when they are actively looking to purchase a product or service. It is great to get high ranking for a more general keyword, but people who are just looking for information do not convert at high rates. The best keywords to target often feature action verbs like “buy” or “purchase.” Another good strategy is to target questions that people ask when they have problems that your product or service can solve. It is much easier to turn visitors who are searching for these keywords into clients than it is to sell things to people who are looking for general information.
• You are including too many keywords
Always make sure that the text on your website is well-written and readable for humans. Moreover, the content on your website should be useful for people who are searching for specific keywords. Stuffing too many keywords in your article can lower your site’s search engine results page ranking. In addition, putting poor quality text that is obviously written for SEO on your website will cause visitors to lose trust in your business.
About the Author
Jo Harris is a writer and the Outreach Director for the Morgan Law Firm, a firm that represents clients going through a divorce in Austin divorce firm. See additional articles on the firm's Austin Divorce Blog.
