So you have a great website but are wondering why you are not getting qualified leads or the traffic you envisioned. There could be a number of reasons from technical to content to SEO related. Let’s take a look at some of the main reasons why you might be frustrated, and some possible solutions for those problems that you encounter.
Website is not being indexed properly
One of the first steps is to ensure that your website is able to be crawled by Google and indexed by the search engines. How do you know if it is indexed? There are two ways.
First do a search for your website. Open up a new window in your internet browser. Add the “site:” to the front of your domain name” For example, site:https://example.com. If your pages appear, the site is indexed. You can also check individual pages the same way.
Second, use Google Search Console. Login to your user account and use the URL inspection tool. Type in the page you would like to check. GSC will display the live status index and even give you the crawl history, along with any errors that might be causing your page to not be indexed and shown in the search results.
How do you resolve the non-index errors? Often times, it could be a simple setting in your website. For example, maybe the page is not set to let search engines crawl in the page settings. It could be that the page is redirected to another page. Another cause would be that the page is low on content. GSC would be the best recommendation to diagnose these and other similar issues.
Content Does Not Match Search Intent
Search has changed today. Writing for users and providing a good user experience should be the number one priority. Do not write for Google or stuff keywords onto the page in places that seem unnatural or out of place within the content. Think about what you do and the problem that you are trying to solve for users. Talk about the benefits, how you can help, and what the end results will be. Provide reviews and case studies to enhance and verify the results they can expect to see should they decide to partner with you.
Do not get caught up fully on keywords. They should be used as a reference to see the user search intent in a specific area or region. Not as a measuring stick for performance. You also may be targeting keywords that are too competitive and getting dominated by already established and authoritative sites. Other metrics like impressions, clicks, engagement rate, events, new users, sessions, etc. are better indicators of site growth. These can be tracked in Google Analytics and even narrowed down to a specific page or campaign. Google search console provides resources to see what phrases users are searching for when encountering your site in the search results and whether they are getting clicks. Similar to Google Analytics, you can break it down by pages, compare time frames to analyze the progress, and even break it down by device or country and region.
Technical Problems
If your website has technical issues such as broken pages, server errors, missing sitemaps, etc. it can create crawling/indexing and a poor overall user experience. Broken links lead to blank pages or a 404 page. In other words, a page that does not exist. Think about a user who wants to find out more information, clicks on a link, and then finds a blank page. They are going to bounce or go to another website. It’s not only a reflection on your attention to detail, but a signal to Google that users are experiencing a friction point. As a result, Google and the search engines may not want to serve the page higher in the search results because it is not helpful.
Sitemaps help the search engines determine what pages to crawl on your website. It provides a roadmap for which pages are considered important and crawled more frequently for content updates. How often a page is crawled also depends heavily on site performance, server capacity, and how often content actually changes. In addition to the instructions inside a sitemap file.
Server errors can also cause a disruption to the rankings if the web server is down frequently, the website is slow loading, has script errors (i.e. Javascript, form errors, etc). All these once again provide a poor user experience and will cause users to bounce to another site.
A search engine optimization consultant or specialist has specialized tools that can complete an audit of these specific errors. Options include Moz, SEMRush, Screaming Frog and more. Delco SEO does provide an audit option and will credit back your account should you move forward and partner with us. This is a great first step which provides an overview of exactly what specific areas are needed, and should be focused on prior to moving forward.
Local SEO Issues
Local SEO is often overlooked and when not executed properly can be a big missed opportunity. Ensuring your business is listed properly, consistent across the web, and verified is essential. NAP is an acronym often used which stands for name, address, and phone number. If a business is not listed or has conflicting information, that can be confusing for users. They don’t know the exact address, when the business is open, the proper phone number to contact, etc. As a result, the search engines will be hesitant to display those results because they are not verified. Also, having complete information is important. Parking, services offered, special hours, etc. which gives users an idea of what to expect when visiting your location.
There are several options to help you create and manage these business listings. They include Bright Local, Yext, Moz local, SEMRush, etc. They can make sure your listings are verified, correct any errors, and remove duplicate entries to ensure your listings are up to date.
Poor Internal Linking
Internal links are pages that are linked together within your own website. This is best utilized around topic clusters. For example, if you are discussing search engine optimization as we are, we might have the local SEO, on page and off page SEO, along with some specific blog pages which all link to the SEO services page. It provides a signal to the search engines that you are an authority around that topic, and would like to place an emphasis on that topic. It can also lift the ranking of the main page and all of the supporting pages that link to it. In addition to getting those additional pages crawled more often by the search engines.
The most effective way to do this is to complete a content audit. Determine what content you already have available and where you can use some additional supporting content. You will be surprised how much information you may have around one topic, but missing around another. Then, determine what linking structure makes sense. Who will be the main pillar page, and which pages would best support and link to it.
The Site Is Too New
If your website is new, it could take a few days up to a few weeks to get indexed. You will need to be patient. Some recommended steps are to submit a site map in Google Search Console to capture a large amount of pages, or use the URL inspection tool for specific pages. With the inspection tool you can submit an index request for important pages.
Hopefully these help you in determining what might be causing your site to not rank or be as visible as you had hoped. There are other reasons as well not listed here that require a deeper dive and an SEO expert. Feel free to contact us with any questions or additional information needed as we are always happy to help!
