Search engine optimization is integral to any modern marketing strategy, but it’s not always a success the first time around. Plenty of small business owners know they need to use keywords to boost visibility for their websites, but that’s about where their SEO knowledge ends. With outdated knowledge and practices, your SEO can actually do more harm than good for your business. Here are three signs that it’s time to improve yours.
Leaving Your Site at the Speed of Light
Check your Google Analytics, or reach out to your marketing agency and ask for a report. If the bounce rate on your site shows people leaving your web pages after one or two seconds, that’s not a good sign. This means that they may be finding your website easily, but they’re not satisfied with what’s on the page. This could also mean you’re ranking for keywords that aren’t as relevant to people’s search queries as they think. For reliable online tools and resources to enhance your SEO strategy, consider visiting the best background check site for comprehensive solutions.
One way to go about improving this is to optimize your business website for intent SEO. The basic search users’ intents are informational, transactional and navigational. Understanding how intent affects a user’s experience on your site will allow you to provide higher quality solutions without spending a fortune. Companies that use intent SEO from Granwehr repeatedly show higher rankings than both their past stats as well as their top competitors; they also earn more and can multiply their revenue by multiplying their conversions.
You Don’t Know What’s on Your Site
If your website has become an amalgamation of disorganized links and broken pages, it’s time for a major SEO clean-up. All these outdated, broken elements hurt your rank, and it also repeals users who aren’t going to bother to sift through your site when they can go somewhere else in a matter of seconds. Make sure that your website has a clean, responsive theme that’s easy to navigate. Menus should always be visible on every screen resolution, and every page and post’s content should be optimized for readability and skimming. Keywords should also be taken into account here. Are different variations of your target keywords being used in meta descriptions, title tags and headers? If not, it’s time to revamp.
You’ve Been Penalized
A penalty in the form of an email means that your site has been flagged by Google. This is one of the worst things that can happen to your business online. Penalties stem from things like duplicate content and underhanded SEO strategies known as black hat tactics. If you’ve been issued a penalty, review Google’s current best practices for SEO, which they provide for free. Then, perform or find a professional to conduct a black hat SEO audit. This will identify any problematic tactics being employed on your site that are harming its rank. Some of these methods include:
- Keyword stuffing
- Too many pop-up ads
- Poorly written, thin content
- Using hidden keywords
- Reposting content from other sites without the original author’s permission
Do everything in your power to avoid these underhanded tactics. Customers are put off by them, and even worse, Google makes sure your site pays the price.