Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a misunderstood and often misused term. It’s not a magic bullet that will instantly transform your website from the bottom of the search results to the top. However, it is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting your website seen by potential customers.
There are a number of signs that indicate your website could benefit from SEO. In this blog post, we will explore some of these signs and what they mean for your website visibility.
Your website is not ranking on the first page of Google for relevant keywords
It is important for a website to rank on the first page of Google for relevant keywords because it increases the visibility of the website and helps potential customers find the website more easily. When a website ranks higher on Google, it also receives more traffic, which can lead to more sales or conversions.
There are many factors that contribute to a website’s ranking on Google. The most important factor which is in your control is the quality of your website’s content. If your content is well-written and relevant to your target keywords, you will have a better chance of ranking higher in Google search results.
At the same time if your website lacks a well thought and executed keyword strategy or contains plagiarized content, then you may never see your website in Google Top 10
Here are a few things you can do to identify and fix these issues
Check for plagiarism
There are several FREE online plagiarism check tools that you can use to identify the uniqueness of your content. One such tool that allows you to check plagiarism (FREE up to 2000 words) is Check-Plagiarism.com.
The tool will share the uniqueness score (or originality) of your content. If your content is minimum 90% unique, then there isn’t anything to worry about.
If you have a uniqueness score of less than 90% then you may want to look into improving on that score. Again, there are several tools that you can use to paraphrase the plagiarized section to achieve a better score.
A few really good tools which I personally use to paraphrase are Copy.ai and Copymatic.ai
If plagiarism isn’t the issue here then we need to relook at your keyword strategy.
Relook at your keyword strategy
We often get to ambitious and produce content for really high (traffic) volume keywords. Although, it isn’t wrong to do so, it’s really difficult in ranking on Google Top 10 for such keywords if your website lacks quality backlinks.
There are only 2 ways you can move ahead from here, either focus on generating tons of quality backlinks or re-optimize the content with keywords with lower volume that attract comparatively less competition.
I’m leaving a few links to my older articles below for you to look into if you need guidance for keyword planning.
8 Different Types of Keywords and How To Avoid Keyword Stuffing
How To Write Blogs That Rank Quickly and Monetize Immediately
Your Website has High Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate conveys a negative signal for your website. It indicates that people aren’t really interested in your website, content or your website isn’t high quality. There could be several issues which may have resulted in a high bounce rate for your website. Let’s look into a few of them:
Poor Internal Linking Structure
Internal linking your content with other relevant content on your website is very important in controlling the bounce rate. It signals search engines that the website is able to retain the users for a longer duration and has relevant pieces of information which is well connected to enhance user experience.
To fix this think Semantic SEO and generate more relevant content and then link them together. Semantic SEO is all about answering the next question that may arise in the mind of the reader. For example, if your website is about fashion tips (clothes) then it make sense to create and link articles written on accessories that will go well with those clothes.
Content Delivery Issues (High Load Time)
Today the entire world is interconnected thanks to the internet. You have limited control on where your visitor (audience) resides and this poses a challenge. If your web server is located in the middle east and someone from the United States discovers you on SERP, the requested information (your webpage) has to be transmitted from the middle east to the US.
This causes a delay in the relaying the information which results in an increased load time. Majority of the internet users today have low patience when they seek information. If your website takes more than 5 seconds to load, consider your traffic lost and this results in 100% bounce rate for your website.
A simple fix is to opt in for a Content Delivery Network (CDN) which enables a copy of your website to be stored on different servers across the globe. Hence, the information doesn’t need to travel a larger distance anymore and the user can simply fetch the copy of your content from a close by web server with improved response time.
Technical Issues
There are several other issues that may be the cause of high bounce rate such as server side rendering, HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc. Let’s club them together and call them technical issues. You can go to Google’s Page Speed Insights and see them for yourself.
This is the part where a web developer comes into play to fix these issues as it requires the ability to code. However, there are ways where you can cut down on the costs and fix these yourself with little to no effort if you’re a WordPress user.
Low organic traffic
Organic traffic in my opinion is the measure of your SEO success. Well optimized websites will always have a higher percentage of organic traffic as compared to the other sources. If your website has less than 50% of your total traffic as organic, then you should look into it.
There are several types of traffic source that you can see on Google Analytics which are – Organic, Social, Referral, Direct and Paid. Each of the channels indicates your success in driving traffic to your website.
Direct Traffic is when a user has typed in your exact domain to access your website.
Social Traffic is when a user has discovered your links on social media and has clicked on it to land on your website.
Paid Traffic is when a user has discovered your advertisement and click on it to land on your website.
Referral Traffic is when a user has discovered your website link on someone else’s website and decided to click on it to land on your website.
Organic Traffic is when a user has searched for a query (keyword) on search engine and has discovered your website and decided to click on it.
Paid Traffic stops when you stop investing in ads, Social Traffic stops when there is a change in trend, Referral Traffic stops when the referring website stops generating traffic.
As long as you rank in Google Top 10 you will always have a constant flow of traffic to your website and unlike social, paid or referral traffic, it doesn’t die out if there is a change in trends (seasonal), you’ve stopped investing in ads (paid) or if the other website has lost rankings.
Hence, if organic traffic isn’t the largest contributor of traffic to your website, you definitely want to look into SEO to change that.
Stagnant Domain Authority
The concept of Domain Authority was developed by Moz which predicts how likely your website will perform on SERP. Earlier Google itself used to inform the users about how likely their website will perform on SERP using a metric called “Page Rank”
Google has discontinued showcasing the PageRank for websites to ensure no black hat techniques are used to manipulate the rankings on SERP. However, PageRank is still a measure of the website’s strength on SERP and they still use it but hidden it from public view.
Coming back to Moz, the DA is a score (1 being unlikely and 100 being most likely) which predicts how will a website rank for keywords on SERP. The Domain Authority mimics the PageRank to some extent. They also created a Page Authority (PA) which predicts how likely are keywords from a single page to rank on SERP.
Page Authority is a part of Domain Authority, DA showcases the overall ability of a website to dominate SERP where as PA showcases the page(s) ability to dominate on SERP. If your website’s DA has remained stagnant for a while, it may be a cause for concern.
As time passes by your DA will naturally increase however if newer websites (competition) have managed to surpass your domain authority, then, you can expect a decline in your website traffic. To increase your Domain Authority you need to generate high quality and relevant backlinks. Dropping a few guides below on how to achieve them.
10 Useful Tips To Improve Your Domain Authority (DA)
Month on Month overall decline in traffic – slow death
To always be at the top of SERP you need to constantly look for changes in trends, user behavior and communication, especially communication. Take a movie for example, what was a super hit back in the 80’s wont get 1/4th the recognition in 2023 if released in a theater today.
Hence, although it’s the same story (evil villain and god sent hero) it needs to be repackaged so as to suite the current consumption pattern of the audience. Similarly, if your website hasn’t evolved with the latest trends, no matter how high quality is your content, you will loose traffic.
UI and UX
UI stands for User Interface and UX stands for User Experience. As technology advances we need to keep up with it and stay up to date. Even Google has changed their UI which has improved the user experience significantly. Take a look at how Google UI looked in the 90’s below
What was considered beautiful at one point looks plain and simple ugly today!
Hence, you need to integrate the latest technology into your website wherever relevant. When was the last time you visited a website and stayed there to consume content when the UI was plain and simple yuck!
The User Interface plays a silent yet a significant role in the overall user experience which encourages them to stay on your website and keep on consuming content. It is very important to keep updating with time and being arrogant and reluctant will only lead to the death of your website.
It may sound insignificant to you but do you remember Nokia, Kodak and Skype? Although for different reasons, they aren’t dominating the globe as they used to at one point. Apple and Samsung crushed Nokia, the digital chip (memory cards) brutally murdered Kodak and the inability to effectively market themselves (Skype) gave rise to Google Meet and Zoom.
Unable to establish a Topical Authority
Topical Authority stands for the abundance of knowledge or expertise in a particular topic. Let’s assume your website is all about Digital Marketing as the primary subject in which you have content on all aspects of DM which is SEO, SEM, Content Marketing, Email Marketing etc.
Writing 1 or 2 high quality content on one of the aspects isn’t enough to establish authority (knowledge or expertise) on the subject. You need to keep pushing out content at regular intervals discussing the main subject in detail.
For example, if I write a post about Search Engine Optimization covering the basics such as What, Why, How, When and Where isn’t enough to establish my website as an expert in that area. However, if I keep producing content related to SEO, then, I stand a chance to establish my authority (topical) to Google.
Establishing a Topical Authority has several benefits however the one that I like the most is a quick and direct entry in to Google’s Top 10
If you have written a lot of high quality content on a particular topic and have attracted or generated several high quality and relevant backlinks, then, you’ve more or less established yourself (as in your website) as a topical expert in Google’s eyes.
This ensures that when you publish some content related to which Google considers you as an expert, you need not start from the back of the line. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee a spot in top 10 but requires minimal efforts to reach there.
Since this content will be linked to another piece of content (SEO) on my website, it shares the Page Authority which results in better visibility, regardless the age of the content (brand new webpage).
Conclusion
Search Engine Optimization isn’t rocket science, it’s a profession which doesn’t even require a degree from a university which means ANYONE can do it. If your website is showing these signs you need to look into them ASAP and fix the issues or simply hire a SEO to do it for you as it requires a lot of time, research and patience. I hope this guide was able to help you.
