In today’s evolving digital marketplace, disregarding SEO can put your business significantly behind its competition. According to GE Capital Retail Bank, 81% of consumers research online before deciding to buy something. As a result, SEO considerably impacts business selling online and in person.

Just because your business is local doesn’t mean you should overlook SEO. Good small business SEO is essential for the survival and growth of almost any small business. As stated by LSA-Acquisio, 75% of searches made on mobile devices lead to a store visit in the first 24 hours, with up to 30% of those resulting in a sale.

No matter what the nature of your business, successful SEO is vital in its growth. However, as many companies can attest, just having it doesn’t mean it is beneficial. If it were that easy, I would be wasting my time writing this article. The path to success with SEO can often seem like a minefield where the mines constantly change position. It seems impossible, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be.

Reasons for bad SEO 

SEO is a bit of amorphous term sometimes. Optimizing a website for search engines, namely Google since it dominates the market, is more than just stuffing copy with the right words or collecting a lot of backlinks. These days it takes into consideration a whole host of different aspects, from structure and design to quantity and quality of relevant copy. Understanding the different aspects, and looking at how they might be failing when matched against Google’s ranking considerations, can provide you with critical insight into how your own SEO efforts might improve.

Bad Website Structure

It is important to remember that web designers don’t have to be SEO specialists. As a result, having a good website doesn’t guarantee positive SEO scores. Site structure is something Google’s algorithm takes into consideration when ranking a website, and overlooking it will send your ranking spiraling downwards. How do I know my site’s structure is bad? How do I fix it? To answer these questions, you must first understand SEO authority.

SEO authority is a score predicting how well a page will rank on search engine result pages (SERP). Generally, the homepage of your site has the highest score due to the amount and quality of incoming links. The total authority transferred to the remainder of the pages depends on how far away they are from the homepage in the site’s structure. To put it another way, placing pages with high SEO content more than one link away from the homepage decreases their ranking. 

Avoid this problem by hiring a developer that incorporates SEO strategies when building a webpage. It might cost more initially, but it can save you time and money in the long run. If it’s too late for that, hire an SEO expert to reorganize your site’s structure.

High Loading Times

A site’s loading speeds can significantly influence its SEO. Research has shown that 47% of consumers expect a website to load under two seconds, while 64% percent of mobile users expect loading times to be under four. Statistics like these are behind Google’s growing emphasis on loading times when ranking sites. So, if your webpage takes over 4 seconds to load, it’s affecting your rankings.

The good news is that improving a site’s loading time is usually as simple as switching to a better hosting provider. The bad news is that the better the provider, the higher the price. 

Bad Content

One of the most common reasons for unsuccessful SEO is bad content. Google is continuously improving its algorithm’s ability to seek out and rank high-quality content. As a result, it is getting harder and harder to get away with average, let alone poor content without getting slammed in the rankings. 

Spamming your site with a bunch of typical paid-for articles won’t do your ranking any good. Be ready to spend time and money on high-quality original articles, videos, photos/illustrations, and infographics. Another common issue that hinders SEO scores is outdated content. Not only does this lower your scores, but it can also drive away your current audience. 

Another typical red flag is duplicate content. This can occur internally or externally, and both impact SEO rankings negatively.

Keyword “Stuffing”

With the release of Google’s hummingbird algorithm, keyword stuffing as an SEO strategy is rapidly dying, if not already dead. With hummingbird, Google now understands the intent behind a user’s search instead of just matching it with keywords. So if you are searching for “How to raise SEO,” Google will rank sites with excellent in-depth guides about raising SEO high even if they don’t have the exact keywords in the title or article. Also, if you just spam the keywords in your content and it makes no sense, you can face Google penalties. 

Avoid keyword stuffing by using the following methods : 

• LSI keywords: Latent Semantic Indexing keywords, in simpler terms, words that are closely related to your keyword. Instead of repeating the keywords several times, use a variety of LSI keywords to avoid stuffing.
• Keyword Density (1-3%):  There is no real limit or guideline on keyword density, but experts recommend keeping it between 1-3 percent.
• Use Synonyms: Using synonyms of your keyword in your content can also help you avoid stuffing. 

 3 Successful SEO Strategies

1. Site Optimization

Nobody is going to spend too much time on a tough to navigate, slow-loading, and ad spamming site. And guess what, Google knows this. Google wants to provide its users with the best results for their search; this means you need a high-quality webpage with relevant content to score high on their rankings. Ensure your webpage has:

• Fast loading speed
• SEO structure (Site Navigation)
• Original and Relevant Content
• Website Security
• NO keyword stuffing in the content
• Content Variety (Infographics, Pictures, Videos)

2. Quality Over Quantity Link Building

Gone are the days where you can pay ten bucks for a hundred inbound links and enjoy SEO success. Google takes time to analyze the strength of the links you create, meaning; quantity won’t get you far. Start small through social media and trade links with small businesses related to your field. Your best link builder is your content, as people naturally want to share and associate themselves with quality. 

3.Stay Up-to-Date With SEO Practices

As you may have noticed throughout this article, SEO is constantly changing. Google is continuously updating its algorithms and ranking schemes. Take time to stay up-to-date with these changes to give yourself the best chance at SEO success. 

Conclusion

We live in a fast-paced world where everything is rapidly changing, and SEO is no exception. Search engines are constantly developing new technologies to give their users a better experience. Though a variety of factors can prevent your SEO success, solving them requires staying up-to-date on SEO strategies and updates.

Luckily for you, despite all these changes and fancy technologies, one factor seems to remain constant. If you haven’t guessed content, you should probably re-read the article. At the end of the day, the quality of your site’s content is going to make or break your SEO success. Fresh, original, and quality content combined with a fast and easy to use platform is your best and most realistic chance at SEO success.