Top Reasons Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working

So, you’ve begun SEO for your website but have yet to notice a shift in your organic visitor numbers. After putting in much effort, you may be asking, “Why isn’t my SEO strategy bearing fruit?”You may have been making basic SEO errors, and that’s the quick and easy answer. While errors in SEO are prevalent, they may have a devastating effect on your internet marketing campaign if you do nothing to rectify them.

However, this isn’t the only thing that might be affecting your SEO approach. Many factors, including link development and technical SEO, influence organic SEO ranking. We’ll analyze everything that may have gone wrong with your SEO campaign. First, though, we need to learn how Google decides which websites to prioritize.

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a collection of techniques that may be used by any content producer to boost the visibility of their work in search engine results. This means that their sites will appear higher in relevant searches, increasing the likelihood that consumers will click on their links. Your online profile and earnings can both rise if you implement these strategies. But keep in mind that search engine optimization isn’t a one-and-done deal. When it comes to producing and updating content for your company’s website, search engine optimization best practices should become the norm.

Due to Google’s dominance in search, search engine optimization strategies prioritize high placement in Google’s index. In fact, during the years 2018 and 2019, Google accounted for almost 95% of all smartphone searches. Searchers in today’s always-connected society typically just look at the first few results before giving up. Your website’s traffic may be increased by placing it in the first 10 search results; the higher up the page you are, the more people will click on it.

Best practices for search engine optimization extend to things like website loading time, photo captions, inbound links, and social media engagement. There are a lot of moving parts in search engine optimization, but you can get a leg up with these free digital marketing tools. 

Reasons Your SEO Strategy Is Failing

Here are seventeen explanations for why most businesses fall short.

1. Ineffective partnerships between companies and agencies

Eighty percent of businesses now contract out their content promotion. The problem is that they hire partners who aren’t up to snuff or who don’t know how to properly apply the 200+ SEO elements that Google considers.

2. Most businesses choose the lowest-priced supplier they can find

Despite common misconceptions, content marketing is not a replaceable service. When it comes to marketing, business owners and executives typically focus on metrics like article volume and number of backlinks. As a result, the market has corrected itself. The bulk of SEO service providers have positioned their offerings to be competitively priced. In this manner, performance declines. SEO is not an area where you want to skimp. Almost the majority of our customers had previously tried less expensive SEO services with other providers, to no avail. If you don’t know what you’re doing with SEO, you’re wasting your time and money. For instance, there are still a surprising number of businesses that don’t bother to include an About Us page on their sites, even though this is a critical SEO element for building trust in a brand’s online presence. 

3. SEO firms gain backlinks from low-quality domains for their client companies

Similar to the previous point (#2). You get what you pay for, as is the case with many things. The outcomes suffer when low-cost suppliers are used. Why? Since there is a whole black industry dedicated to SEO link trading. Bad links are created, or even worse, a Google penalty is incurred. The explanation behind this is straightforward. When assessing your site’s SEO position, Google considers (among other things) the domain authority of referring URLs. You not only risk getting manually or algorithmically punished by Google if you receive backlinks from trash domains, but you also gain no positive ROI from your SEO efforts.

4. Businesses prioritize the quantity of visitors over the quality of visits

Unless you’re a magazine, the goal of professional SEO is not to receive a large volume of visitors. The key is to attract visitors who are likely to convert. Articles that place well in Google search results but only receive a small amount of traffic (30-50 a month) are a common source of leads for our SEO consultant services. The quantity of visitors isn’t the most important metric for search engine optimization; rather, it’s how engaged your visitors are with your content that matters most.

5. A lack of keyword research is common among businesses and the firms they employ

As with the earlier point (#4), here we have a play on words. Conversion-ready traffic, rather than sheer volume, is what matters most. This results mostly from focusing on promotional rather than informative information. If I own a company that offers AI consulting, for instance, I’ll need to decide which keywords I want to focus on. Sure, getting a high position for “what is artificial intelligence” might bring in a lot of eyeballs, but would it translate to actual purchases? Not likely at all. It’s a different ballgame if I try to rank for something like “artificial intelligence services,” though. The second query reveals the user’s true motivations. People who type “what is artificial intelligence” into a search engine are often just curious about the nature of the topic, whereas those who type “services” are likely seeking a list of organizations that specialize in AI software development.

6. Companies expect instant results, then devalue SEO efforts

Search engine optimization takes time. In terms of timeliness, I have not seen better outcomes than ours. We’ve climbed to the top of Google’s search results for ourselves and our clients in under a month. Of course, it isn’t always the case. Consequently, we cannot foresee in advance whether or not it will get a high ranking. If you ask Neil Patel (who often tells his readers and viewers that it takes 100 days to rank for a keyword), he’ll tell you that 60 days is nothing short of fantastic. SEO is often abandoned too soon by businesses. The correct outcomes elude them constantly.

7. Companies fail to address fundamental SEO-harming flaws with their websites

Website performance, technical SEO, A/B testing, analytics, content adjusting over time, and many other aspects all play a part in search engine optimization (although backlinks, shares, and content creation play a HUGE role, too). Any one of these problems can kill your SEO and keep you from ever ranking on the first page of Google.

8. Businesses often don’t create “marketing personas.”

Search engine optimization is only effective if the material provided is targeted toward the right audience at the right time. Only via the development of detailed personalities can this be possible. The aforementioned screenshots feature three distinct pieces of writing about content marketing in the financial sector. One targets financial technology companies (‘fintech startups’ keywords), another bank managers, and still another businesses (‘financial product marketing’). This demonstrates that we are catering to not one, but three distinct marketing personas with carefully crafted content.

9. Businesses often try to rank for keywords that are too competitive

There are hundreds of permutations of search terms used on the web. Many marketers waste their time trying to rank for keywords with little chance of success because they take too long to rank for. If you want your post to rank in the top 10 of Google for the term “online marketing,” you’ll need at least 150 incoming links. You may also rank on page one of search results for hundreds of variations of this keyword in as little as two months (for instance, “hotel online marketing” just needs four backlinks).

10. There is a lack of content optimization among businesses

SEO, as I mentioned before, is becoming a commodity. This is true on both the agency’s end and the company’s end when employing an SEO Consultant. That is to say, once an article has been published, it is done. But the process has a more fundamental truth at its heart. When done properly, SEO may lead to a piece of content ranking for more than one keyword. Your task would be to monitor these Terms and incorporate new content into your articles that address the other search terms for which you are showing promising rankings. If you search Google for “healthcare marketing,” you’ll get our site at the top. However, if you search for “medical marketing,” you’ll find us as the 22nd result. Boom. Away with two fowl with one stone.  

11. The lack of consistent updates to company material

Similar to point #10, but distinct enough to merit its paragraph: Google despises outdated material. How interested are you when, during a Google search, you come upon an item published in 2005? Every six months, your company should review its most important content and give it a new coat of paint. Since we released our post on “digital transformation in healthcare” last summer, a lot has happened, so we’re taking our advice and updating it with two additional parts. When you update your content, you’re telling search engines like Google that your page should continue to appear towards the top of results since it’s still relevant.

12. Businesses are ignoring the importance of website usability

Many marketers make the mistake of concentrating primarily on search engine optimization (SEO) and content strategy, ignoring the fact that content is only one component of a larger whole: your website. It doesn’t matter how many people visit your site if the design is difficult to navigate or the content doesn’t interest them enough to want to get in touch with you. It won’t work as intended. You should not worship at the altar of SEO but rather make sure that your SEO-focused content flows naturally with the rest of your site. The goal of content strategy is to increase site traffic and reader engagement with your brand. Now we’re done. You won’t get a return on investment from your content marketing efforts unless your website provides a great user experience.

13. Companies don’t cross-link between content and their services

You should include references to the products and services your business offers in every piece you publish. Your material, like that of #12, does not exist in a void. Users will most likely find your site through search engine optimization, therefore you should direct them to further service pages, contact us forms, and related articles. To sum up, whenever you post an item online, you should link to at least two additional pages inside your website (landing pages, other articles, etc.).

14. Businesses seldom develop targeted landing pages

Can you send people who read an article you wrote in the hopes of generating interest in your business’s offerings to a landing page that makes sense given the post’s subject matter and tone? The only purpose of an article is to gain the reader’s faith in the business. This proves that the men being consulted are experts in the field. While search engine optimization can increase traffic, it cannot convert casual readers into paying customers. That’s why it’s important to direct readers to appropriate landing pages that you design in conjunction with your content. To do business online, you need a landing page. An instructional webpage is an example of content. If you want to see a return on investment from your SEO work, you need to make the connection.

15. There is no remarketing of corporate material

Converting a person on their first visit to your site is impractical, yet this is what most marketers don’t realize. A tiny fraction could contact you by phone or electronic mail, but you shouldn’t count on it. Retargeting is used in this situation. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, “retargeting” refers to the practice of displaying advertisements for your website to visitors who have already visited your site as they browse the web. A cookie is used to identify a user’s browser. Banners on landing pages (Eureka!) that are relevant to the content they have viewed on your site can be set up for remarketing using Google Ads. At our SEO consulting services, we implemented retargeting for a healthcare marketing post, for instance. Therefore, viewers will be exposed to banner adverts on other websites after reading this content and leaving our site. If they click on the ad, they will be directed here. Typically, our site converts between 2% and 3% of visitors.  Our remarketing conversion rates average between 10 and 15 percent.

16. Most businesses fail to join up their social media and content promotion efforts

You probably saw the heading of this section and thought, “This can’t be about me; I just share everything I write on social media.” That’s not a holistic content promotion at all. Sharing your work on social media just makes it visible to your current audience. Finding relevant online threads and responding with a link back to your post is one way to effectively connect your SEO material with social media (but don’t spam the internet; instead, add value by tagging other users and sharing an article). When we share an article that includes a link to another author’s work, we always make sure to tag that author in the social media post. When applicable, citations should be included in your writing. We go online and tag the writers of published articles on social media shortly after they go live. Our material gets more exposure since these writers often engage with it by liking, commenting, and sharing.

17. The content performance is not tracked by businesses

Simple measures for monitoring content performance are monitored by most marketers. Conversion rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates are the most prevalent. That won’t cut it. You need sophisticated analytics if your blog is going to generate a profit. 

SEO’s Top 8 Advantages

Developing a solid SEO plan may help you attract more customers, boost sales, and establish your firm as an industry leader. Here are eight reasons why businesses of any size should consider adding SEO to their marketing plans.

Advantage No. 1 of Search Engine Optimization: Free, Organic Clicks to Your Site

Visitors that arrive at your site naturally, via a search engine, are known as “organic traffic.” Your site has to be well-optimized to make the most of this attention. You want Google to think your site is the best place to get answers to certain inquiries.

With the correct search engine optimization (SEO) plan, your company may compete for a share of the 63,000 searches made by Google every second. Focusing on keywords relevant to your business and the content you’re sharing is a great strategy to boost your SEO. 

Web crawlers at Google check every page on the Internet for relevant keywords, usability, and credibility. This information is used by the bots to select the most appropriate responses to each inquiry. It’s important to consider how visitors will search and what phrases they will use if you’re creating a piece about, say, accounting software for NGOs. Google will give your post a better relevance ranking if you appropriately use the keywords “accounting software for nonprofits” and provide a comprehensive solution to the topic.

Second, SEO helps generate leads at a low cost

When compared to outbound marketing strategies like cold phoning or spamming people with emails or ads, SEO is one of the most economical ways to expand your brand’s internet visibility. Effective search engine optimization (SEO) puts your website in front of individuals who are actively seeking the product or service you are offering when they enter those phrases into a search engine. Therefore, these prospects are in an extremely committed state. 

The bulk of people’s time spent online is spent searching for something. An estimated 93% of all online encounters begin with a search engine, according to Imforza, an online branding platform. Meanwhile, 70% of the results that are clicked on are natural, rather than bought, placements. While the close rate for print ads and other outbound marketing methods is closer to 1.7%, the rate for SEO leads is 14%.

The benefits of SEO also persist over time. Well-managed SEO may consistently drive qualified visitors to your site long after other forms of Internet advertising have stopped working.

It may take some time to implement SEO at your firm, but you will probably not need to spend any more money on advertising, which is good news because it means more money for your business. You may learn SEO strategy and how to use it in a holistic digital marketing plan in a course offered by Digital Study School.

Boosted Brand Recognition 

You want to be recognized as an innovator in your field while also being seen as a practical option for your target market. How can you get people to remember your brand when there are already 1.88 billion websites? One effective method of doing so is by employing search engine optimization strategies.

To be seen and respected online, you need to be on Google’s top page. If you’ve done a good job of optimizing your content for search queries, you should see a spike in clicks, which in turn will enhance your engagement and credibility. Your SEO plan’s initial success might spark a snowball effect that eventually makes more people aware of your company.

Keep in mind that brand awareness is more than simply name recognition; it also involves consumers understanding the values and benefits of your brand and the products or services you offer. Providing searchers with relevant, high-quality information that they can rely on is at the heart of content marketing. Since they trust you, they are more likely to become paying customers when they have questions.

It Puts You Ahead of the Game

Competition exists in every sector. You should analyze their SEO tactics the same way you would analyze their print ads. You may learn a lot about your rivals’ keyword rankings, content volume, and linking strategy by using tools provided by websites like Moz and SEMrush. You can outrank the competition if you zero down on the most relevant keywords for your sector. 

Finding gaps in the market where you can fill the void left by your competition is one approach. Find obvious gaps in your SEO that you may fill to improve your rankings in Google search results for that term. 

It Makes Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Mobile searches continue to rise regularly. In the second quarter of 2021, mobile devices accounted for 61% of all searches. But what does that mean for companies? If your site is not mobile-friendly, you might lose almost half of your potential customers. A mobile-friendly website will also receive a higher ranking from Google. It is no longer optional for businesses to create and maintain a mobile-friendly digital presence; even if your website looks fantastic on a PC, load speeds and screen sizes will vary drastically across the numerous brands and styles of mobile devices.

Here are a few suggestions for improving the mobile user experience:

• Make sure the button sizes are legible without zooming in, but not so large that they obscure the text.
• Keep it short. Mobile devices’ screens are often smaller than those of personal computers.
• Avoid using annoying pop-ups that make navigating the site a chore.
• Make sure to make use of a template that adapts to the viewing device’s size.

It Creates Credibility

It takes time to create consumer trust, even with a solid SEO approach. Invest in high-quality material for your readers to establish yourself as an authoritative source of current data. If customers have a more favorable impression of your company, it’s likely to rise in the rankings. 

Google’s algorithm takes into account more than simply the frequency and authority with which you engage with your audience when determining your site’s rating. Google takes into account how you assist site visitors into account, even if they don’t end up making a purchase. Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT) are the three pillars around which Google bases its search engine rankings. What this means is that overusing a term in material that no one cares about is pointless. 

Although increasing engagement takes time, the payoff should be a larger market share and better search engine rankings. Add comment sections, Google Maps, and contact pages to make it simple for site visitors to reach out to you. Encourage open dialogue and provide constructive criticism. Make material that others will want to spread around since they found the information to be useful. 

It Boosts Your Other Ad Campaigns

You can take your SEO to new heights by combining it with sponsored, inbound, and outbound marketing strategies. Given the significance of content, it is wise to compile a repository of written materials from which to draw when developing marketing materials that both enlighten and engage. If your business is on the first page of Google results, potential customers may be more likely to do business with you, regardless of how they discovered your company. 

Insight into emerging market trends is another benefit of maintaining a close eye on your SEO. You’ll be able to track the rise and fall of certain search phrases to learn more about what interests consumers and what holds them back from making a purchase. If you’re keeping a close eye on your Google rankings and SEO, you should soon notice any trouble spots. 

If both your organic SEO and paid search advertising efforts are successful, your company’s website may get up on the first page of Google’s search results more than once. The paid advertisements come up first, followed by the natural search results. 

SEO Helps Drive Foot Traffic to Your Storefront

Search engine optimization (SEO) is not limited to e-commerce. Google (or another search engine) is often the first stop for consumers looking for anything, be it a new garment or a new restaurant. To provide the most relevant results for a user’s search, Google’s “near me” feature takes into account the user’s current location. People who conduct a “near me” search on their mobile device are more likely to visit the shop within a week (88%) and a day (76%) after searching. That’s a huge potential audience that can be reached with the appropriate SEO tactics!

If your company has a physical presence, optimizing your online visibility will bring more customers through the door. Make sure Google is aware of your physical location and the kind of services you offer to attract more customers.

How to Conduct a Thorough SEO Audit and Generate Long-Lasting Results

An in-depth audit may help you identify weak spots in your SEO approach and take corrective action before they negatively impact your search engine results. To get long-term results and maximize your online exposure, you need to devote yourself consistently, keep up with developments in the field, and use tried and true SEO practices.