Hit a Dead End?
Whether you implemented your website’s SEO yourself, or you’ve outsourced it to an agency or an individual, it’s important to often review its performance. It’s no secret that Google is regularly changing, updating, and tweaking algorithms—and this can often create a roller coaster that may affect your website’s visibility.
Many businesses can fall into the “set it and forget it” mentality, implementing SEO on their website then hoping it will perform its magic forever. The truth is, this sets up your website for failure from the very beginning and can restrict your website’s visibility from ever reaching its full potential. Ultimately, you may find your website in a situation that’s so abysmal, that you’re not quite sure how to come back from it. This is when you need the help of a professional!
The first step, however, is paying close attention to what those signs may be:
Organic traffic has flat-lined
It’s not an uncommon occurrence to hear businesses recall the “glory days” of booming website traffic. Before Google started implementing such rigorous and specific ranking signals, many websites were able to generate a decent amount of traffic with generally little effort. For the most part, this has changed. If you’ve noticed that your website’s traffic has come to a gradual crawl, or had one giant drop off, this could be a sign that your website needs an immediate SEO audit.
Of course, there could be many reasons why your organic traffic has toppled, and this is where an audit comes in handy! An audit will analyze your website structure, on-page optimization, site speed, broken links, and so much more! These piled up issues could be the cause of your dead traffic, and if it is, an audit will help to uncover it!
You’ve relied too heavily on tools
If you already know you’re guilty of this, this section is for you. We understand! There are so many incredible SEO tools out there, ranging from free web-based applications to WordPress plugins built into your website’s backend. These tools are wonderful guidelines that can help the SEO layperson make easy adjustments. However, just because making the edit is easy doesn’t mean you’re doing it correctly. Stacking plugins or other applications can create conflicting issues, and end up causing you more harm than good.
An audit will be able to determine whether all these tools are working for or against you.
Traffic that’s not converting
Receiving a ton of traffic to your website that’s not converting can be just as disheartening as not receiving any. If you’re in this boat, a possible scenario is that your keyword optimization is not refined enough, and you may be ranking for phrases that do not quite relate to what you’re offering. Having a high bounce rate is another tell-tale sign of this issue.
Having a professional audit your website can identify these issues, and guide you towards choosing keywords that people who want your services are searching for. Maybe you’re a bakery selling your intensely craveable pâte à choux but the truth is a lot of people won’t be searching for that exact term, so you need to branch out to other keywords such as pastry dough, french pastry dough, eclair dough, etc.!
Falling rankings
This is probably the number one “red flag” that there may be an SEO issue with your website. Floundering rankings could be attributed to any number of factors, whether it be an algorithmic update, a duplicate content issue, or maybe just some aggressive tactics from a new competitor.
When rankings start to slip, it’s important to avoid making any drastic changes that could cause them to fall any further. Rankings are constantly in a state of fluctuation, and a drop may be temporary. If the drops continue, a professional SEO audit can help identify what changes could be made that will stop the bleeding while strategizing new tactics to improve your visibility as a whole.
If one of your goals as a business is to have a website that attracts customers through high search engine visibility, always be sure to pay close attention to the aforementioned warning signs. At Simply Design, our team of Albuquerque SEO and web development professionals can help you audit your website and identify issues that could be stunting your growth. And no one likes stunted growth.
Email, call, or chat us today! We absolutely love talking about this stuff and enjoy helping our clients cultivate a stronger online presence through better design, practices, and production.