6 Common Reasons For Low Search Engine Rankings

Conducting research on search engine rankings for your business is important, but it can also yield some unpleasant results. During your investigation, you may learn that your website is actually performing quite poorly when it comes to these rankings. Instead of allowing your pages to plummet, potentially causing you lost business, consider the reasons why the site might not be appearing as high as you would like in the rankings listed.

1. You aren’t properly integrating keywords and phrases. 
Multiple problems with keywords and rankings could arise. One issue is that you might still be using techniques that were popular back when search engine optimization was in its earliest stages of life. In other words, you might be focusing more on stuffing the content with keywords and phrases than on producing material that sounds natural. While you do want to ensure that the content integrates relevant search terms, you must make the quality of the writing a priority. Remember that you are not creating content for robots. If the keywords and phrases appear constantly, people may very well look at the material as nothing other than spam. Consider the length of the content and the appropriate amount of times to integrate these signals into that number of words.

You also want to make sure that you’re harnessing a local approach when approach. For example, if you own a craft store that has one location in a specific town, you probably aren’t going to generate the necessary amounts of business if you’re website visitors are from the other side of the country. When you do bring in keywords and phrases to the content, you want to make sure that you’re also incorporating a local approach in doing so. In other words, using the name of the town and the state can help you to generate appropriate traffic to the website. You can connect with individuals who can actually visit the store.

2. You didn’t hire professionals. 
Think about how you allocate tasks at your business. You probably don’t take care of all of the marketing, accounting, customer service, shelving, cleaning, maintenance and other tasks by yourself. Instead, you have specific individuals, teams or departments who are in charge of these tasks. The same should be true for the search engine optimization techniques that you use on your website. If you want to have high search engine rankings, you should then seriously consider hiring a company that specializes in SEO to revamp your website.

Turning over this amount of control can seem daunting, which is why you’ll likely want to find SEO professionals who can work with you as opposed to just for you. Start your search by looking for a company that has experience in your niche. Hiring a team of SEO artists who primarily work in the food industry might not help your business if you sell supplies for home air conditioning systems. Also, you want to hire a company that uses modern techniques. SEO has changed greatly since businesses first started using it, and you don’t want these old strategies weighing down your success. Make sure to select professionals in search engine optimization who will update you and continue to work with you when even more changes for the best strategies emerge in this field.

3. Your content is old. 
Think about yourself when you go to visit the website of a favorite business. If you keep seeing the same material over and over again, you’re likely to stop going to the website in the first place. While visitors probably don’t expect you to update your website every day, they also aren’t going to visit if there’s nothing to see. You certainly have multiple options when it comes to updating your website on a regular basis.

Of course, you want to make certain that basic information is up-to-date. If you’re displaying an inaccurate menu or incorrect store hours, consumers probably aren’t going to be too happy when they arrive at the physical location. You can also integrate blogs, videos and other such posts to keep the material on the page fresh. When you’re worried that you won’t have time to post all of these pieces at the times that you want, you could schedule them to automatically post at a certain time.

You may also worry that hearing the same voice over and over again is going to bore your readers and viewers. This assumption might be correct although if you have a team of creative experts, they can likely come with ways to keep the audience entertained. Another option is to have guests post content or to hire different freelancers to bring fresh perspectives to your page.

4. You aren’t using content marketing. 
With this talk of videos, blogs and the like, you might be saying that you aren’t currently using these strategies on your page, so you don’t have this type of material to update. Failure to use content marketing is likely another reason why your website is doing poorly in terms of search engine rankings. Modern customers do not just want to read lengthy product descriptions. Instead, they want to get a more inside look at the business, and content-marketing strategies often allow them to do so.

You can implement content marketing in a few different ways. One popular strategy is to start a blog. In the blog, writers could discuss the products and services that the business has to offer, but they could also talk about events that are of interest to the community. For example, if your company recently attended a community event, this experience could be chronicled in the blog. Videos and images also allow interested parties to see what your company is up to and how to use the products that you sell in everyday life. These methods allow your business to connect with customers in a more personal way, which is what many modern consumers want. Content marketing also allows you to get creative, which can help to bolster your business or to show a fun, innovative side to your company.

5. Your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices. 
Just think about how often you go on your cell phone to access websites as opposed to how often you use your laptop. Even if you do tend to use your laptop or computer, you’re likely aware that many people do not. A website that isn’t optimized for mobile devices is likely to lose a great number of potential viewers. When people go to the site on their mobile devices, they may be introduced to pages that are jumbled and difficult to read. With so many other options for products and services available on the internet, they may very well just switch over to one of them.
You can make your website even more accessible by developing an app. On the app, people could access information in a similar fashion to how they would on the regular website. However, apps tend to allow for even more versatility. For example, you may offer a more streamlined shopping experience through the app, or you might allow customers to contact you directly with questions. Using an app in conjunction with other strategies is an excellent way to show that you own a modern business that is eager to speak to today’s customers.

6. You aren’t using social media. 
While you don’t need to go and sign up for every social media out there, you do need to consider the serious implications of avoiding social media in modern times. Some people do not even bother going to websites anymore. Instead, they head right to social media to see if the company has a presence there. In the event that they discover that the business is not on social media, they may actually begin to question its reputation. Whether this assessment is fair or not doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it’s what happens. Delivering material to consumers in a form that they want has always played a significant role in advertising, and social media is the modern way of doing so.

Social media can also help to make your company more productive. For example, you may find that some email inquiries from current and potential customers go missing, which is certainly not good for your business’s reputation. With some social media platforms, individuals can send questions and comments directly to the account, thereby allowing you to respond with greater ease and alacrity. You can also monitor the social media page to respond to any comments that are made directly on it. Setting up a team of social media experts is a smart way to optimize your experience on the platforms. Remember to select the social media outlets that make the most sense for your business.

A major goal that you should set for your company is to do well in terms of rankings. If you are making any of these mistakes, take the time to work on revising your plan and developing better strategies.