Why Is My SEO Not Working? Here’s Why
Just being able to be indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing won’t cut it, since the majority of web users do not usually get past the top five results. This has prompted many marketers and website owners to be overwhelmed by the need to cling to the current SEO developments.
The frenetic rush to the top is intense, and sustaining your internet presence is now more challenging than ever. In effect, the primary motivation now for business owners is to take their SEO strategy more seriously, if they want to generate a massive quantity of traffic and eventually land themselves a spot at the peak of search engine results pages. However, you cannot just achieve this by merely making simple adjustments.
Now, you ask yourself, why is my SEO not working? If your SEO approach is truly effective, you should see results in at least three months. But if not, then your SEO campaign is probably not performing effectively, as it should be. So, what could possibly be the reasons for your SEO campaign or strategy’s failure?
Unrealistic expectations, poor website content, and insufficient link-building efforts are some of the reasons why your SEO is not working. It is crucial to comprehend these variables before beginning your search engine optimization efforts to be more aware of the things to do in order for you to improve. Nonetheless, errors when doing SEO normally occur and are inevitable, but failing to correct them urgently may have a cascading effect on your online marketing approach and overall marketing strategy.
Why Search Ranking Matters?
Search engine rankings matter because it increases the visibility of your website or business, leading to more traffic and eventually more customers especially when your target keywords are on the first page of Google. A higher search ranking means that a website will appear at the top of the search results list when a user searches for keywords related to the website's content. This makes it more likely that the website will receive visits from users, which can lead to increased traffic, engagement, and conversions. When you optimize for long tail keywords, you’re increasing the chances that potential customers can find you by searching for what they want like the services or products that you are offering.
For some businesses and organizations, a high search ranking can be especially important because it can help to build brand awareness and credibility to users. A website that appears at the top of the search results is more likely to be perceived as a reputable and trustworthy source of information, which can help to establish the business or organization as a leader in its industry.
Additionally, a high search ranking can help to improve the user experience by making it easier for users to find the information they are looking for. A website that is well-optimized for search engines will provide relevant, high-quality content that is easy to navigate and understand. This can help to increase user engagement and reduce bounce rates, as users are more likely to stick around and explore the website if they find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
10 Reasons Why Your SEO Is Not Working Or May Have Failed
1. Unrealistic Expectations
Search Engine Optimization can be rather considered to be a long-term investment than a one-time remedy. You may opt to use Google AdWords or other kinds of paid search advertising if you want to see immediate results. But if you want to steer clear of more expenses from having to pay Google on a regular basis and just want your website to appear on SERPs by your own efforts, and generate stable and busy organic traffic, then using SEO is a good idea. However, successful SEO is about progressively transforming your website into the most authoritative one in your niche, as it involves a combination of technical optimization, content production, and link-building. Be that as it may, there are still promising and strong SEO efforts that are cut on its momentum just because the client/customer expected better results in a very little amount of time.
2. Poor Website Content
One of the primary reasons why your SEO is not working is poor website content. Not producing content that is worthy of your audience’s attention just deteriorates your potential to rank. Viewership from your target audience is what determines website traffic, and if your content is not worth consuming, it will build negative impressions on your audiences. Thus, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your website produces quality material. Your audience will begin to flee from your website if your posted materials are not original, have a lot of grammatical problems, and are not plagiarism-free. The worst thing that could occur is you will be flagged and penalized for being inauthentic and your potential customers not coming back. Simply put, just make sure that the content of your website is valuable to your audience while keeping it real.
3. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content continues to be a concern for most websites. It can mislead search engines as to which version of a piece of material is the primary one, or it can steer people to linking numerous copies of the same piece of content, fragmenting the value of those links. Duplicate content is only a fraction of what can really cause harm to your website. The more pressing issue here is having Google confused on which article to rank. As a result, since Google can’t decide between them, neither of them ranks. Now, you may be wondering how to know whether your web content is duplicated or not. This can only be done with the help of a plagiarism checker. The tool will quickly compare your given content with millions of internet resources and then generate a report describing the percentage of both unique & duplicate content.
4. Out-marketed By Rivals
Competition from rivals might be one basic reason why your SEO is not working, but it is mostly overlooked when crafting SEO plans. Businesses must recognize that websites should adjust and be adaptable to changes as they do not operate in a vacuum. As your rivals continuously add new content, products, and brand value, so should you. The best spot on a search engine’s results page is open for everyone and is changeable — you can be outranked if you do not step up your SEO game.
5. Referral Spam
Referral spam happens when a website that is completely irrelevant to you sends you a significant amount of traffic. These traffic referrals still made their way into your Google Analytics statistics despite how rigid Google’s algorithm is. More so, unpleasant traffic isn’t solely sent by spammy-looking domains because a high authority site that doesn’t refer links back to your site is also a spam referral.
Now you may ask, why is my SEO not working when these spam referrals generate traffic?
The issue with spammy traffic is that the type of people that were gravitated towards your website is not your target market. Oftentimes, they aren’t even actual visitors but webmaster tool bots, so they just eventually bounce back. When spam bots generate bogus traffic for your domain, the reported data in your Google Analytics is likely to be inaccurate.
6. Outdated Sitemaps
Another reason why your SEO is not working is because of outdated sitemaps. Search engines love sitemaps as they assist them in comprehending the structure of your site as well as locating links. However, as your website undergoes adjustments and restructuring, there might be elements that are erased. All of your important modifications will not be reflected in a sitemap if it is not updated. As a result, search engines may encounter broken links or crawl areas of your site that are not relevant for SEO ranking. To circumvent this, you may utilize a sitemap generator that is dynamic, update your original sitemap, or re-submit it through Google Search Console.
7. Incorrect Targeted Keywords
Sometimes incorrect keywords are what negatively affect your SEO standing. If your target keywords do not match your content and target audience, it would likely bounce back. You should identify which keywords are the most desirable and appropriate for your industry. Being able to streamline your branding and marketing content through the proper keywords can set you ahead of the competition.
8. Failed To Leverage On Social Media
Did you know that 74% of consumers utilize social networking services? With everything on the internet just a tap of a finger away, social networking has been handy for both consumers and business owners alike. Only when you tap into all of the key elements of social media that are applicable for SEO will you realize the impact of its performance on your business.
9. Slow Site Loading Time
The time it takes for your website to load is already a ranking factor for Google. A website’s slow loading, which affects design, functionalities, and user experience, is now penalized by search engines. The main reason for loading time to be a factor for ranking is due to the inconvenience it gives its users. Moreover, there are tests that show that fast loading speed also lessens operational expenses.
10. Poor Link Building
We always wing up at links after we have developed our website, produced content, optimized it, and applied SEO strategies. But somehow, you may still ask — why is my SEO not working? Solid links from both internally and outside bring in branding advantages, establish your site’s authority and credibility, and increase referral traffic. However, you must see to it that those links come from current and relevant associated domains. Link building frequently necessitates a value exchange. So you must create something that is really beneficial for your target market and audiences and also urge others to establish links to it.
How to improve SEO?
1. Improve Your Produced Content
Let’s start with the most prevalent cause of poor SEO performance — poor website content. The truth is, we can never always expect all our materials to be listed amongst the top on SERPs. There are a lot of factors to give thought to; if your posted content is poorly written, not optimized properly, and your website is badly designed, then it would really be a struggle to rank in Google and other search engines.
In your every created content, you must exhibit to your audience your expertise on your niche. Ensure that it is supported with some primary or secondary experiences and sufficient information. Furthermore, you must also demonstrate authority from your website, which means you should appear to be highly reputable within your industry. And finally, your website and content must be something that can be trusted. Make it a habit that your services or products offered are authentic alongside accurate.
Although the aforementioned factors are not quantifiable thus, they can’t be considered a variable for ranking, but it is certainly useful to improving your content. The best practices that you can apply in order to refine your content are the following:
Fact-checking your material and at the same time be sure that it is original to avoid issues of plagiarism.
Building links from established and reputable associated sites.
Hiring seasoned and competent people to optimize your website and do your content for you.
Exhibiting your company’s accomplishments and credentials. This helps in building up your authority and trustworthiness.
Displaying your contact details and other pages where they can learn about your company.
2. Run a Technical SEO Audit
After assessing the reasons why your SEO is not working, your next problem might be how to deal with it. Nonetheless, you don’t have to be too anxious about it, as running some technical SEO audit might just fix those woes for you. Technical SEO audits may sometimes result in immediate boosts in organic search exposure. Your website may benefit from this approach since it provides structure. Auditing your SEO technically covers a wide range of topics related to how pages work.
3. How do I know if my SEO is negative?
Negative SEO occurs when someone takes action to harm your website’s rankings in organic search results. While it is not always easy to identify negative SEO, there are several signs that your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) may be negative, including:
-Decrease in the number of indexed pages
-Drop in overall rank for key target phrases
-Sudden decrease in organic traffic from search engines
-Links from questionable sources pointing at your website
-Reduction in page speed or performance
-Decreased engagement
-Low-quality backlinks
If you suspect that your website has been targeted by a negative SEO attack, it is important to take action quickly to address the issue and protect your website’s reputation. This may involve disavowing backlinks and removing malicious links coming from your site.
Where to Ask Help for Your SEO Issues?
There are several factors that might cause your SEO efforts to fail, and those ten aforementioned reasons might just be the cause. Once you have figured out what’s causing your SEO to not work, then you will need to create an action plan to improve your SEO. You may avail of the services of an SEO Specialist Virtual Assistant from SmartVAs. Our seasoned virtual assistants who are experts on search engine optimization can help you reevaluate your current SEO approach and recommend adjustments to enhance your SEO game. All you just need to do is to wait for a few more months to see if those tweaks in your SEO have been effective.