Why is My SEO Not Working?

"Why is my SEO not working?"

That's a question business owner asked every once in a while.

More over, forums and facebook groups are full of posts in which people claim that #SEOisDead.

Well, SEO is not only alive and well, it's one of the best ways to generate more leads and sales for a company.

However, many businesses have never seen any positive impact of the SEO services they ordered. Why is that ?, There are many reasons why SEO might not work.

Search engine optimization is a complicated process that few experts really understand, that is one of the many reasons why SEO has such a notorious reputation.

Reason #1

                        You’re not spending enough money

Business owners often think that if they're spending any money on SEO, they should expect good results. However, it's a question of whether you're spending the right amount of money to achieve the results you expect.

How much is that ?, Depends on your goals and multiple factors such as:

- Level of competition

- Difficulty of keywords

- Quality of your content

- Authority of your domain

- Etc.

Owners are told SEO is a long-term solution and many of them are unwilling to put a lot of money into it, especially when they're starting out. Everyone's worried about their ROI but you need to understand that you have to invest before you can profit. The less you invest in SEO, the longer it'll take to see the results from it, if you are serious about your business, don't spend pennies on your SEO.

Remember, SEO is much more expensive if you do it the wrong way.

Reason #2

                    You’re not using the right keywords

I can't emphasize enough how crucial keyword research is for your business, very often business owners say one of this two things:

"I know the best keywords for my site but I need better rankings"

OR

"I rank well for my desired keywords but don't make enough sales"

In both cases I ask them the same question:

"Why do you think these are the best keywords for your business?"

The most common answers are:

? I just know (?!)

? They are super hard so they must be good

? Тhey have the highest volume

? I want to beat my competitors

You know what ?, SEO is so much more than just finding the keywords with the highest volume, or the ones you think will work for you. Instead, SEO is based on solid data and in-depth analysis.

Here are 3 quick tips:

? Find keywords which have high CPC rate

? Focus on long-tails, not on head terms

? Start with phrases that have lower difficulty

Remember, top-notch keywords research is not based on search volume or wild guesses, it's about knowing your ideal clients and giving them what they want.

Reason #3

                           Unrealistic Expectations

Let's face it,,

Search landscape is a highly competitive field, you can win the race but have to start small and grind your way up the ladder. Get real about your goals and the resources you're ready to invest to achieve them.

Here are 4 quick facts to prove it (all are approximations):

• Organic results get 90% of all clicks
• Less than 10% of people visit page 2
• Top 3 organic results get over 60% of traffic
• #1 organic result gets 33% of clicks

What does this mean ?,

If you're not ranking on the first page of Google, it's as if you don't exist at all. However, every company yearns to get these sweet spots on the top of Google, that's why your expectations have to be realistic from the get-go. If you're a small company you need to start with baby steps, If you're a medium size one you need to overtake the biggest players. Imagine it as a David vs Goliath fight,,

You need to:

- Come up with a smart strategy

- Prioritize your keywords

- Create great content

- Promote it proactively and consistently

- Build your authority and reputation

Remember, your competitors got to the top because they put in lots of work, time and money.

Reason #4

                     Low quality & irrelevant links

Back in the day links were the most important factor in SEO, you could literally rank for any keyword by just building links.

Even if your:

? Page barely had any text

? Content was spun or of low quality

? Links were spammy or from bad sources

? Anchor texts were overoptimized

? Design, navigation, and UX sucked

Yes, things were very different back in the day, SEO was a much easier task. Pretty much everyone could do it. But, the game has changed a lot over the past 2-3 years.

Google is tightening its rules every day.

SEO has become something which should not be experimented with anymore, links are still one of the most important ranking factors.

This hasn't changed a lot.

However, today is more important than ever to build the right type of backlinks to your site. It's means Quality and Relevance.

If you lack these, your SEO won't work. Even worse, you're at risk of a penalty which is very hard to revoke. Don't build links unless you know what you're doing. 

Remember, you're better off with none than with bad ones, focus on content and social media presence instead.

Reason #5

                           Your site is too slow

RIP slow loading websites,,

Site speed is now officially used as a ranking signal. Both on desktop and mobile devices. Anyone in SEO knows that Google has used page speed as a ranking signal for years, well, for the first time, Google is focusing on page speed for mobile.

Here's the official message:

"People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible - studies show that people really care about the speed of a page.

Although speed has been used in ranking for some time, that signal was focused on desktop searches. Today we’re announcing that starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches"

The goal ?,

To down rank pages that load slowly on mobile devices.

This change was only to be expected, you can't just focus on your content or links anymore. Your site speed will now be evaluated when ranking your pages, Google's been heavily focusing on UX for the past 2 years.

- Dwell time

- Bounce rate

- Avg. time on page

They're all counted when ranking your content. Nobody likes browsing through slow sites. And if your visitors hate something, Google won't show it to them.

Most people think that Google rewards you for having a fast-loading website.

But that’s not true, Google doesn’t reward fast-loading websites. It penalizes slow-loading websites, and this update will likely make that penalty even more severe.

Remember, check your site speed. Invest some time info speeding up your site. Do everything with your users in mind, they're your most valuable asset. If they love you, so will Google.

Conclusion

    How To Hire an SEO by Maile Ohye, Google Developer Programs Tech Lead

One of the biggest hold up to improving a website isn't their recommendations, but it's the business making time to implement their ideas.

If you are not ready to commit to making SEO improvements, while getting an SEO audits maybe helpful, make sure that your entire organizations is on board, else your SEO improvement may not existence regardless of who you hire.

Big Thanks to Nikolay Stoyanov for the explanations,,