Signs Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working (and What You Can Do About it)

It’s easy to get into the habit of assuming your search engine optimization strategy is “good enough” for your business. But even if you’re still getting enough engagement to generate sufficient revenue from conversions, your SEO strategy may not be working for you. Read on to see if you are noticing any of the following signs that suggest your SEO strategy needs some tinkering.

Your Traffic Flow Has Slowed

If you’re not already using Google Analytics, take a moment to set up your reports to show the kind of traffic to your website you want to monitor. Any dips in traffic from organic or paid sources (or both) should be taken as a sign that your SEO strategy needs some adjustments. There are several possible reasons why you may experiencing traffic issues. The most common causes of insufficient website traffic include:

• Using the wrong keywords
• Not indexing your site correctly
• Unintentionally blocking your site from search engine crawlers
• Content that’s just not connecting with your intended audience

Conduct an audit of your SEO strategy. Look at everything from how your website is designed to the content that’s presented and the tags you are using. Use your results to determine what parts of yours strategy need attention.

You’re Not Seeing Conversions

You could be getting plenty of website traffic but little or no conversions. This usually means there’s something about your website that’s not meeting the expectations of visitors. It could be because of the content on your site, or you might not be providing enough direction with a clear a call-to-action. Your website may also be failing to generate conversions for the following reasons:

• Navigation within your site is difficult
• Your keywords aren’t reflective of the content that’s actually on your site
• Your page load time is too slow (most searchers consider anything longer than 5 seconds too long)

Combine conversion rate optimization with your SEO efforts. This means you’ll optimize your website based on an understanding of how visitors typically move through your site, what actions they usually take, and what’s likely preventing them from taking your desired action.

You’re Not Considering What Your Audience Wants

It’s one thing to crank out a lot of content and another thing entirely to focus on producing content that actually addresses what’s important to your intended audience. Creating content in a vacuum makes it difficult to connect with searchers looking for something more meaningful for their needs. If this is what you’re doing, you’ll quickly find yourself in an “if a tree falls in the forest…” situation. In other words, nobody is paying attention to your content. Instead, produce content based on the typical problems your products and services are supposed to solve. Also, consider factors such as how long your content should be, how easy it is to read, and the frequency with which you produce new content (too much content can make it difficult for your audience to absorb what you’re putting out, no matter how well optimized it is).

You Have No Clear SEO Goals

Randomly seeking backlinks or picking and choosing keywords with no clear purpose or specific goals in mind is the ultimate sign that your SEO strategy isn’t working. After all, how can you really know if you’re getting the maximum return for your investment if you haven’t determined what you actually hope to achieve with your online engagement? Consider some of the common goals businesses often have for their SEO endeavors:

• To increase website traffic
• To turn leads into conversions
• To become a reliable source of information for searchers
• To build brand awareness and increase online visibility

Exploring your available metrics can also clue you into where you need to focus more of your attention. When you do make changes, allow some time for your adjustments to take effect. Testing specific webpages, paid ads, calls-to-action, and even the keywords you use can also help you connect more effectively with your target searchers. After you fine-tune your SEO strategy, pay particular attention to stats such as time spent on your site, your online traffic patterns, conversion rates, and bounce rates to determine if things are improving.

If you’re not sure where to get started when your SEO strategy isn’t working, let the experienced team at 445 Media help you sort things out. Contact us today to start seeing results that matter.