If you’ve been making efforts to improve the SEO on your website but you’ve not seen any noticeable improvements in key areas, it could be time to reassess what you’ve been doing.
You may be attempting some DIY SEO in-house, or using a specialist agency or consultant to optimise your site. Whichever is the case, you need to know that your investment is paying off. If there’s no noticeable progress towards achieving the goals you’ve set, whether it’s improving site ranking, traffic, leads and/or sales, you need to review the situation.
Here are 7 of the main reasons why your SEO may not be delivering the results you want. Remember that more than one of these may apply to your website:
1. Your expectations are unrealistic
If your targets are overambitious (or impossible even), you’re unlikely to reach them. If you’re expecting miracles, it’s no wonder you’re disappointed. You need to choose achievable, realistic and above all, measurable performance indicators in order to properly assess how the campaign is going.
2. You need to give it a little more time
It takes time for SEO improvements to take effect. You may be asking yourself ‘how long does SEO take?’ but there’s no universal answer to that question. In most cases, it would be unreasonable to expect a campaign to produce solid results within around four to six months. Good campaigns are well researched and regularly adjusted, to find the perfect techniques and strategies to deliver the best results in the long run.
3. Your budget is too small
Small businesses and startups don’t have a lot of cash to spend on marketing and SEO, but it really should be considered an investment. You won’t necessarily see better results the more you spend – as it’s important to make the right choices – but you do need to properly fund a credible agency or specialist to do a great job on your SEO. How much should you spend? There are a lot of things to consider, but luckily there is advice out there to help you spend your money in the right places.
4. Your site is targeting the wrong keywords
If you or your SEO consultant doesn’t do the research, or is blinded by search volumes for a particular term without seeing how well it converts, you could end up optimising your entire site for the wrong keywords.
5. Your content needs to be better quality
The standards set by Google and other search engines for website content are extremely high. It’s no longer ok to spam your site with poor quality, keyword-stuffed content. In fact, this approach could be downright catastrophic and cause your site to shoot down the rankings.
You need to be producing well-written, valuable and structured content where the intent behind keywords, images and videos is clear.
6. Your competitors are doing it better
SEO is all about boosting you up an inch or two ahead of your closest competitors. If they are working harder, spending more money or working with better people, it’s only natural that their sites will outperform yours.
7. Your ‘expert’ isn’t really an expert
It’s scary how many SEO ‘experts’ there are out there, most of whom have next to no knowledge or experience but are very happy to take your money.
Take your time choosing the right people to work with. Choose reliable, trusted, transparent and ethical SEO experts such as Ambos Digital, who have a proven track record of delivering real results.
