10 reasons why your SEO campaign isn’t working

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Apr 5, 2019 / by
10 reasons why your SEO campaign isn’t working

SEO is constantly shifting lanes and these perpetual changes can intimidate and overwhelm content creators, site owners and digital marketers, many of whom rely on SEO as their bread and butter. There are, however, a number of constants that remain regardless of the number of times Google decides to move the goalposts.

SEO is by no means an exact science, but we think we’ve managed to pinpoint the primary reasons why you might be struggling with your latest SEO campaign.

Poor Content

If the content on your site is not relevant and doesn’t reflect your readership then it’s not going to be very popular – it’s as simple as that. As a site owner, the onus is on you to make sure that that content on your site is original, free from plagiarism and grammatically sound, not to mention insightful, interesting and relevant. You can use all of the tricks in the world, but at the end of the day, if the content isn’t there to back it up, your traffic is going to suffer.

Ignoring Google

As the search with almost 90% of the search engine market, Google are the gatekeepers of your SEO strategy. As such, everyone with even a passing interest in SEO needs to keep track of all the latest updates to the Google algorithm. It might be a lot to wrap your head around and it certainly doesn’t help that they are constantly changing how their algorithm affects site rankings, but ultimately – they call the shots.

Inbound Failures

Although effective links are still important in any SEO strategy, there are still marketers out there that believe in the quantity over quality approach when it comes to inbound links. That simply doesn’t fly in this day and age. Indeed, you can actually be chastised for having too many bad links. Learn to know the difference between a good link and a bad link and audit your inbound links accordingly.

A Bad Host

Something that is often overlooked is the role that your hosting provider plays in determining how your site fares on the global stage. An unreliable host will lead to poor rankings, whereas the right host will be free of the fluctuating uptime/downtime and speed issues associated with power web hosting. We’d also always recommend paying from month to month so you’re not tied into a host for a year, as if a problem reveals itself you can switch hosts with minimal fuss.

Mobile-Second

With mobile traffic responsible for over 50% of internet traffic in 2018 and that figure rising year by year, it’s more important than ever that your site prioritises mobile users. It should be a basic requirement in 2019 to have a bespoke mobile version of your site or at least a multifunctional site that is easy to navigate from a mobile device. If your site is difficult to use on a mobile device then it’s no wonder your campaign is failing!

Old School

If you’re still clinging to old SEO staples like keyword stuffing, link and article directories and reciprocal linking then you’re essentially killing your site. Modern SEO requires more patience and more effort and every marketing strategy you make should have SEO at its core. It’s something you have to keep working on and tweaking, not something you can allow to run on autopilot. On a similar note, social media is something that you really shouldn’t be neglecting.

Keywords Falling Short

There is a definite art to choosing the right keywords, but generally speaking you need to be as specific and niche-driven as possible, whilst still focusing on the words that are most desirable in your sector. It’s a tough balance to strike, but if your SEO campaign is failing, it might be because your keywords are either too common or not common enough.

Poor Profile

Building a decent link profile for your site means playing by the rules (and keeping on top of those rules), attracting users to your site via decent quality links and earning backlinks from authoritative sites. Buying backlinks might have worked five years ago, but Google is smarter now and will penalise you for it. Be smart and keep your profile shiny and clean.

Everybody’s Leaving

Check the amount of time an average user is spending on your site and the bounce rate. If your site is one that people are dropping in and out of without spending any time there, your ranking will suffer. You’re also unlikely to be making any conversions and getting any leads so you should probably do something about it and improve your site content so people actually want to spend time there.

Impatience

Finally, you might simply need to have a little bit of patience. SEO results don’t happen overnight and it might be the case that you’re actually making progress that you’re not seeing yet. Or you simply had unrealistic expectations. As long as you’ve checked the warning signs above and have deduced that none of them applies to your campaign, then give it a few months and keep plugging away and you’ll reach that elusive top spot eventually.

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