Nowadays, businesses practice Search Engine Optimization to establish their online presence. However, a few tweaks in the search engine algorithm and your digital marketing efforts can go awry. More so, if you are unaware that an algorithm change is hurting your website's visibility.
That said, we have listed ten signs you need to watch out to know when it is time to improve your SEO strategy:
You're Not Receiving a Lot of Traffic
A robust SEO strategy can bring in thousands of online traffic to your website. And if you cater to a local or regional market, you need effective local SEO services that can also bring foot traffic to your physical stores.
Thus, you might want to recalibrate your existing SEO strategy if your website traffic is dwindling.
Traffic should be one of the performance indicators to improve upon the implementation of your SEO strategy. Therefore, if it's not helping you with traffic, there's something wrong with it.
Your Conversions are Low
You want to drive website traffic so that you can convert them into subscribers or customers. So when online traffic is low, you can expect low conversions.
But what if you have high traffic but low conversion? Then you should look into the quality of leads that you bring to your website.
Perhaps, they are not the right people. As such, you need to get back to the drawing board.
Your Site Isn't Mobile-friendly
When you think of an SEO strategy, the first thing you might develop would be focusing on keywords and keyword research. However, SEO is more than just keyword research.
It is also about providing an excellent user experience to your website visitors — regardless of what device they are using.
There is a growing number of people who can access the internet using their smartphones, tablets, and many more places. You want to make sure that your website can adjust itself accordingly depending on which device someone is viewing.
This might look like it is not a big deal, but if your website is not visually appealing on mobile as it does on the desktop, then you could lose that traffic. That's why you have to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly.
Your Keyword Rankings are Dropping
If you find that one keyword or multiple keyword rankings in your website are dropping, you might want to reevaluate your SEO strategy. With SEO, it is customary to see your keywords' ranking fluctuating every so often.
However, if you notice a continuous decline in the keyword ranking, it is a cause for concern.
The most common reason you might have a keyword ranking that is dropping continuously is that your competitors are upping their game. They might be creating more SEO web pages, and the content on those web pages might be better than yours.
Another reason might be because they’re banking on their local SEO strategies. As such, you might want to revisit your local SEO guide to leverage location-centric keywords.
If you find that this is precisely what's happening, it is time to reclaim your spot in search keyword ranking.
You Have a High Bounce Rate
The most common metric that people measure their websites' SEO strategy with would be the website traffic. However, it would help if you weren't comfortable with the fact that you might be getting a lot of traffic to your website.
You have to make sure that you're also considering what the bounce rate is when you're looking at the website traffic.
The bounce rate indicates how often people who go into your website leave immediately without visiting more than one web page. You want to make sure that your website visitors stay long enough on one of your pages before leaving.
If your website has a high bounce rate, it can hurt your search engine ranking.
There are many elements to your website SEO strategy that could affect the bounce rate. The key is to ensure that you prioritize engagement.
Whatever keyword you're trying to rank for should not mislead people once they land on your website. Otherwise, they will leave in a heartbeat.
You Have a Low Dwell Time
Dwell time is another performance indicator that has something to do with the bounce rate and how engaged users come into your website.
Dwell time is essentially how long until people leave your site. Of course, if the results show that users leave your site immediately after coming to your site, then that's not a good sign.
Many factors affect dwell time. One reason would be that your search snippet does not accurately depict the content of the web page, which is why people are quick to leave.
Therefore, you have to be as straightforward as possible with your page's content pieces and attract the right audience through SEO.
You're Not Leveraging Social Media
Search engines aren't the only places you can use SEO as a strategy. You also have to think about leveraging social media when you incorporate an SEO strategy for your website. Technically speaking, social media isn't exactly a ranking factor for search engines.
However, it is noticeable that social media profiles are the top results for businesses.
Social media can help your website rank on search engine results for relevant keywords. Other than that, you can use the platform to promote the content you produce on your website and get more people talking about your business.
More shares with your content and engagement are factors that will go into the search engine ranking factor.
You Have Rankings, But No Conversions
SEO is an excellent way to get as much traffic and as many eyes on your website as possible. However, if you have superior search engine rankings and no conversions, there's something wrong.
SEO is but a tool, and you need to be able to use that tool in the right way to get you the results that you want, which is most likely conversions.
High rankings with no conversions might not indicate a poor SEO strategy. Still, it can tell that you could not correctly incorporate SEO strategy with the rest of your digital marketing and sales efforts.
You Don't See Any Growth
An excellent SEO strategy can also help you increase brand awareness and grow your business. If you don't see any growth in your brand reach, then there's something wrong.
Your SEO strategy might not be helping you is the lack of branding strategy alongside your SEO strategy. You have all this reach, but then you forgot to make sure that people know who's bringing that content to them.
You Don't Have Goals
When trying to create or improve your website's SEO strategy, you always have to consider your goals. It would be a bit unrealistic and challenging to expect that one SEO strategy will address every single plan you have for your business.
By nailing down a specific goal for your improved SEO strategy, you will have better results and create a more actionable plan.
Conclusion
If you find any of the signs mentioned above happening on your website, then you might want to tweak your current SEO strategy.
Remember, search engines update and change their algorithm to serve people better. And while it is a good cause, it can hurt your business if you are not careful.
Hence, it would be ideal to stay on top of your SEO efforts and make changes when needed.