SEO 101: Finding And Fixing Your Website’s Scary Flaws

It can be a nightmare to look into exactly why your website isn’t ranking in search results… Multiple factors can affect your website in rankings from website health and page loading speeds to content that is not mindful to its users. Here is how SEO can help bring your website back from the dead.

Here is what you can do to bring your website back from the dead and into the eyes of users!

Carry Out A Website Audit

A website audit is like a surgery procedure to find out what exactly is happening on your website, what you can do to fix it then fixing the issue. From an SEO standpoint a website audit is the most important tool in finding out why users may be scared to pay you a visit.?

Website auditing tools such as Semrush, Screaming Frog and Website Auditor are all great tools you can use to diagnose all the issues on your website. No website is perfect but it is best to try and get your website health as close to 100% as possible.?

The results from a website audit will give you the best opportunities to work on your website issues. From the basics like metadata to the more technical things like a missing robots.txt file can have your website dead last at the bottom of search results while your competitors are flying high.

Check Your Analytics

Using analytics tools such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4) & Google Search Console can also help you identify where your website is lacking. Pay close attention to the pages your users are landing on and make sure that they are fully optimised and page speeds are as good as can be. Review those pages and see what you can take from them and implement it to the rest of your website.

Google Search Console can be a dream and a horror movie all in one. This tool is perfect for analysing what keywords are bringing users to a website however it can leave you fearing that not all of your website is visible on Google. Fixing issues that Google highlights as stopping your website from being included in search results should be a top priority.?

Improve your page speeds

We’ve all been there where we hate waiting for any website to load. Use Page Speeds or GTMetrix can help you finding what is slowing your website down. From unused code to image sizes it is important to have quick speeds for an enjoyable user experience.

Saving images in .webp format is one thing that you can start doing instantly to help improve website speeds. Images is one of the most damaging factors in website speeds for SEO so ensure you are using best practices and the correct format moving forward.?

SEO Friendly Content

Website content is now the number 1 factor in climbing Googles rankings. The 2024 August Google Update has seen a big shift in how SEO works. Useful content is king in building rankings and the rise in AI tools such as ChatGPT has Google changing its algorithm so that user generated content appears more frequently.

Content helps you build authority on a subject no matter what industry you are in. If your content is answering questions that users are asking, gives more information than any of your competitors and includes keywords then you are more likely to climb the rankings to the prestigious number 1 spot on Google.?

Website Structure

Your website structure should be structured with your most important content first for example service landing pages, an ecommerce shop etc. Users will always look through the navigation to find what they are looking for and if they don’t then they will leave the website.

In your navigation always make sure to feature your About and Contact pages as they will help with local SEO and getting customers emailing or calling you. However it is recommended to keep these pages further down the navigation so that search engines recognise that your services are the most sought after by users.

Poor internal linking can also have a negative impact on your website. When your pages do not link to the next it can spend a lot more of your crawl budget by search engines. Think about linking each page to the other through keywords and buttons to improve your crawl budget.

Ensuring your website uses HTTPS is crucial. Websites without HTTPS are flagged by Google as potentially untrustworthy since they lack the encryption that protects data from unauthorised interception or alteration. For e-commerce sites, HTTPS is especially vital as it safeguards sensitive information, like customers' payment details, gaining trust and security throughout the transaction process. Users are more likely to trust and complete purchases on sites that display a secure HTTPS connection, enhancing both credibility and conversion rates.

If your SEO is as dead as a door contact us today to see how we can bring your website back to life through the power of SEO.