There is a high chance you have been visiting websites from day one of your internet browsing days. Most probably, you will agree that when it comes to surfing online, you prefer sticking to only those sites that are easily accessible and at ease.
Now, when it comes to ranking well on the search engines, there is no doubt that effective search engine optimization (SEO) can play a great role in making your website more user-friendly. Needless to say, if you are able to rank high on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, then you will be able to get an extensive amount of exposure. This will automatically lead to increased targeted traffic, which means an increased number of visitors to your site.
How Will Good SEO Help Your Website?
Now, if you are new to this aspect of internet business, you must know that before getting your website ranked by the search engines, you need to make sure that they understand what type of content is important for your site and then accordingly rank them well. Of course, there is no doubt that filing up a page with ‘just another article’ will not help any cause. However, if you are able to provide potential users with more than just text, then there is hardly anything that can stop them from checking out your site.
When you are able to rank well; your site will also gain the attention of directories and other such sites which might eventually link back to your website. This can certainly help improve your rankings even more and increase targeted traffic for your website.
Now, just because your website is online and has been set up correctly does not automatically mean that it will start ranking well. In fact, if you are pursuing a place on the search engine results pages with poor SEO tactics, there is hardly any chance of making it to the top. To rank well amidst tough competition from other websites, you need to have the edge over them to stand out from the crowd. Here are seven possible reasons why your website may not be ranking well with practical solutions on what to do about each situation:
1. You have chosen an inappropriate keyword for your content
When you are trying to make search engines understand your site, it is very important for you to choose the right keywords. However, just because these words are deemed as being popular by many people does not mean that they will be perfect for ranking on search engines.
How to solve this: Always remember that you need to choose keywords that are specific and have a high search volume. If you have chosen a too general keyword, then there are chances that several similar websites are already ranking for it. This can make make your website lose its value.
2. Your website lacks unique content
When you have an article that has been published in some other domain or even on your own blog, it will certainly not go well with the search engine bots. This means that even if it is written beautifully and at length so as to let readers enjoy their time while reading them, there are high chances of increasing bounce rate, which would mean no possibility of getting ranked well at all.
How to solve this: Make sure that you provide readers with some unique content that they will not be able to find anywhere else on the internet. This way, your article will be appreciated by search engine bots, and you can get the upper hand over competitors.
3. You have long drawn out articles that lack proper information
There is no doubt that if you are writing a tutorial or any such article, it must be engaging enough to capture readers’ attention and motivate them to visit your website. However, putting up huge chunks of texts with not much formatting or images can prove to be very boring for people.
How to solve this: Make sure that you split up lengthy articles into small ones and add in-text links throughout the pages. This way, it will be easy for readers to click on other relevant, informative content related to the one they are reading. Furthermore, this will also encourage visitors to come back, again and again, to read more from your site, which will increase traffic and help you rank better than before.
4. Your website lacks social media presence
Nowadays, social media sites have become one of the best ways to promote websites and help them rank better. In fact, it has been noticed that those websites which tend to be active on networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter do show high search results with a considerably great chance of getting ranked well.
How to solve this: You need to make sure that your website is able to catch the attention of people with popular social networking accounts who can then share links from your site by tagging their friends. This way, chances are that you will see an increased number of visitors going back and forth between your website and various other pages in no time.
5. Your website is difficult to access from mobile devices
At present, it can be seen that many people prefer going through the internet using their mobile devices rather than using computers. In fact, more than 50 percent of the global website traffic comes from mobile phones which explain best why it becomes extremely important for websites to have a mobile version so as to cater to this need.
How to solve this: You need to make sure that your website is optimized in such a manner that it can be accessed easily through mobile devices without any sort of difficulty. Keep in mind that smartphones and tablets are gaining popularity among people, and if you want more traffic on your website, you must look into all these factors with great care.
6. Your website has not been updated for a long time
This is another factor that can make your website almost invisible to search engine bots. Now, there are times when people visit old articles on a website, but it hardly happens very often. Moreover, if you have visited a page of a site and were looking forward to reading more about a particular topic, yet all you get to see are old details with no current information at all, then chances are that you will definitely move on from the webpage instead of giving it another look.
How to solve this: You need to keep updating content on your website at regular intervals to keep readers interested in what’s going on with your website. In case webmasters are unable to do this for some reason, then it may be a good idea to consider working with professional SEO experts who are well-versed in managing everything related to search engine optimization.
7. Your website lacks authoritative backlinks
In simple terms, backlinks can be defined as incoming links from other websites directed towards your web pages or blog posts. Quality-based websites provide outbound and inbound links to their readers to facilitate easy navigation and encourage them to easily visit relevant pages of such sites.
How to solve this: You need to talk about your website with popular bloggers who have high PR (Page Rank) and DA (Domain Authority) and ask them for a link exchange agreement, or you can even try doing guest blogging on relevant blogs so that you might be able to generate some valuable backlinks that will enhance the overall authority of your site.
8. Your website pages are marked “noindex”
This is one of the most common problems faced by website owners all over the world. The thing about this problem is that many times it goes unnoticed simply because site admins are not aware of its existence, or else they think that it might just go away.
How to solve this: You need to check if your web pages have been marked noindex and if they have, then you should immediately remove them from <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> tags as well as from page source code. If you cannot do this process yourself for some reason, you should consult a professional SEO expert who can easily deal with such issues effectively.
9. Your website doesn’t have a sitemap
If your website has a proper layout with all pages properly indexed, then it will be easier for both visitors and search engine bots to navigate through such a site. In fact, adding an XML sitemap to your site can also help people discover new content within minutes of them entering the domain.
How to solve this: You need to add a sitemap page to your website and make sure that you update the same on a regular basis to facilitate easy discovery by search engines and their bots.
The Bottom Line
It may be frustrating if your website doesn’t rank well even after putting in a lot of effort. However, there are various reasons why this may be happening, and it is up to the webmaster to go through them carefully to take the necessary steps accordingly. With some easy brainstorming, you can come up with great ideas on how to make your website rank higher on SERPs and enjoy a good position among the top websites.