Failing to attain the results you want from your SEO campaign? Can’t help but notice how other businesses in the same industry are doing better in search engine rankings while you are still stuck on the second page?
SEO trends are continually changing, and it is getting challenging for marketers to keep up with the updates. However, the only factor that remains constant here is the value of your buyer persona to look for you through organic search.
Simply implementing a search engine optimization strategy for your business is not enough. To boost the rankings of your website to make it appear on the first page of search engine results, you need more than just a strategy. Even if you have been working on an SEO plan simultaneously, there’s still a good chance that it may not work for you or offer you the desired results.
There are various reasons why your SEO efforts are failing to help you reach the front page. If you lack information, you and your content will remain stuck in the middle forever. This is where we cover the seven most common and crippling mistakes that should be avoided when building your SEO strategies.
1. Does not create attractive content
The key is to create quality content. This is your best bet if you are looking towards long-term growth. You can use any strategy you like to bring more people to your website, but all of that effort goes to waste if you fail to retain them.
As inbound marketing strategies are evolving with time, it is essential to keep up with the changing rules. Google’s latest algorithms are tweaked to improve visitors’ experience when they put up a query on their search engine. Google does not and cannot allow websites to manipulate it just to find a way to boost its system rankings.
Creating quality content is one of the most effective ways to get desired results for your SEO efforts. This will not only boost natural ranking for your website but also keep your audience engaged with the attractive and relevant content.
Businesses fail their SEO efforts when they are clueless about the content they should create. The following is the type of content you should divert your focus on:
- Latest events, news, and trends – just keep your brand up to date with the current affairs
- Time-tested evergreen content – something that remains relevant for years
- YouTube videos – to earn organic traffic
- Guest blogging techniques – focusing on significant publications and top-level blogs in the industry
- Using social media platform to share content that people are looking for
These are some great ideas you can use to retain the traffic you drive to your website.
2. Failing to set practical goals
To make your optimization a success in search engine results, you must have a thorough understanding of what ‘realistic’ means here. And while it may sound great if your brand could get the recognition all by itself and reach on number 1 ranking without any effort, it is not going to happen.
Businesses around you have put a lot of time and effort to own their particular spot in this never-ending battle. Catching up to their standards will take time and realistic goals. Setting a sensible vision of your business is the only way you can drive more organic traffic and capture a major chunk of sales in a competitive industry.
Keep realistic goals in mind and use them to tailor your SEO campaign and activities so that you are able to achieve them. As mentioned earlier, you may find lots of professional agencies, offering you results that sound too good to be true. Therefore, it is essential to focus on the roadmap that helps you outline effective strategies.
Also, working with professionals like Citeninja will also help you design a tailored campaign that offers the business results that you desire.
3. Not giving it enough time
SEO is a long-term endeavor. If you start expecting to see the results immediately, you have an impractical approach. The rankings won’t shoot up instantly. Expert digital marketers emphasize how crucial it is to set realistic goals and expectations for your SEO efforts.
If you are seeking help from professionals in this regard, they might promise you results in a few weeks. Don’t believe such frauds. SEO results take time. The more you are realistic about your approach, the more your campaign will turn out in your favor.
Keep an eye on the results from day one but don’t start panicking if the results take up to six months to show movements. Once you cross that bracket for the time limit, consider tweaking your SEO strategy to make improvements.
In addition to the time frame, set realistic budgets for your SEO campaigns too. If there’s no cash inflow to make essential investments, your SEO efforts are likely to fail. This is mainly because you are failing to offer necessary adjustments to your campaign to grow or provide successful, long-term results.
4. You are not taking social media seriously
If your strategy is missing the ‘social media’ element, it is missing out on a lot. Social media needs to be a part of any successful SEO strategy that works today. While I do believe that links generated from social media do not offer SEO benefits directly, there are multiple reasons why you should include it as an essential part of your campaign.
Factors like earning organic traffic, improved visibility, and higher engagement with your audience are important and cannot be ignored. Especially when you know the significant impact these efforts could have on your search rankings.
The best part is that it is never too late to consider social media as an effective marketing and SEO platform. Start with designing a plan to find out more about the websites that your target audience uses. Use those platforms to establish your own active presence.
As far as SEO is concerned, be sure you are utilizing these platform to the best of your abilities to promote and distribute your content and reach a larger audience.
5. You are still using outdated strategies
Your SEO team is failing on the results miserably because it has not evolved with time. Your team may still be using obsolete strategies that aren’t effective anymore. Ideas like directory listings, keyword stuffing, and even guest post articles are not going to help your search ranking results.
If you are working with an agency that isn’t offering you the latest SEO trends that are valid in 2018 and the years to come, you may be actively using your investment to bring down your own business.
Not every business has their own SEO team of experts. That’s when they turn to professional agencies. However, having a little know-how on the background can help you validate them and figure out if your fancy SEO agency is really helping you out in this regard.
Search engine algorithms and strategies are changing rapidly. And the only way to ensure that you are working with a reputable firm that will help you offer desired results in an acceptable time frame, you must ask for their proven records of past successes.
If you have your own team, make sure they are good at communicating the actions they are planning. Be clear about your vision so that you are offered with the same kinds of services.
6. Optimizing wrong keywords
Another major reason why your SEO campaign might fail is associated with using the wrong keywords for optimizing. Ideally, you must work with a professional firm of experts, who help you choose the right keywords for optimization and also assists in managing your SEO campaign.
However, if you are carrying out these tasks on your own, it is important to conduct detailed keyword research to use keywords that actually work for you. Do not cover this aspect by your assumptions. Don’t deal with data that isn’t verified correctly.
Without proper research, you may be working with data that isn’t relevant to the search engine as well as your audience.
Either utilize professional guidance or rely on reputable keyword research tools to successfully optimize your SEO efforts accordingly. You should even consider checking out your competitor’s activity to find out more about the right keyword. Combine these strategies and achieve desired results.
7. Not focusing on your website
Last but not the least, the key to a successful campaign is to design a professional website, which instantly engages the visitor and converts them into leads.
Customers are essential for any SEO campaign to become successful. If your website fails to engage them and convert them timely, you may fail to achieve the desired results. You can’t compromise on the professionalism and usability of your website. In addition to enriching your website with great content, you must also focus on its design to improve engagement and conversions.
To ensure you have a professional website, here are a few points to help you evaluate it.
- Is my website up to date?
- Does it have a professional design?
- Does it have a user-friendly, easy navigation structure?
- Does it offer enough information to keep up with customer engagement and conversion?
- Is it available on desktop, smartphones, and tablet devices?
- Does your website allow you to gain feedback from your existing customers?
There are various other factors that you can include in the list as per your requirements. Add anything that helps you reach a satisfactory conclusion.
Conclusion
It is unfortunate how so many SEO campaigns are destined for failure. But you don’t have to join them. To save yourself from getting undesirable results, pinpoint and identify what your campaign is lacking and divert your focus keeping the above strategies in mind to keep up with the evolving strategies.
Author Bio:
Evie harrison is a blogger by choice. She loves to discover the world around her. She likes to share her discoveries, experiences and express herself through her blogs. Currently, she is associated with Salesmate team.
Find her on Twitter:@iamevieharrison