4 Reasons Your Website Isn’t Ranking Well

The position of your website in the SERPs is a reflection of your standing in your industry, your SEO efforts, but it’s also fluid and it will inevitably change. As new brands step up to the playing field, and old ones regain their footing, your ranking will change. However, while you might believe you’re doing everything by the book, you need to make sure that your ranking doesn’t change drastically for the worse, and especially not for the long haul. 

Retaining a favorable position in the eyes of search engines means more brand visibility, more brand awareness, and above all, more customer engagement to fuel the previous two. Instead of merely pouring all of your effort into strategies you know should work, you need to regularly take a thorough look to your digital presence and see what’s not working in your favor. 

Posting more blogs won’t do much good if they aren’t keyword-optimized, and publishing infographics won’t mean much if your site isn’t mobile-friendly. Such key distinctions can stifle your otherwise great digital tactics. Here are a few of the most common issues that can negatively affect your ranking, so that you can steer clear of such missteps and stay on the right SEO track.

Subpar Site Speed

It’s a well-known fact that Google and other search engines always take speed into consideration when raking a website or an individual page, for that matter. Although your site might load perfectly when you first launch it, you will inevitably come across setbacks and glitches as your online presence evolves. With more content and code changes come new challenges for your site to load as quickly and efficiently on all devices. Subpar speed will cost you that desirable position in the SERPs, so it’s vital to keep your site’s architecture in top shape. 

Lack of Content Creation Structure

Content creation is a creative process, but it should also be based on market research, customer data, trend analytics, and basic keyword optimization. If your content isn’t thoroughly researched, planned, and adapted to boost your SEO, then you’re not really putting it to great use. Every business needs an all-encompassing content strategy based on a variety of key factors that will define its success, from keyword research, link integration, to topic research.

Before you start producing blog posts and intriguing videos, you should have a strategy outlining your core goals, the main deliverables, milestones, and KPIs to keep track of while you focus on content output. As you publish and create, you should measure the effectiveness of each campaign and each piece of content to make sure you’re using all of its potential to boost your ranking and engage your target demographic. Many businesses will turn to professional SEO experts in such situations, as managing content and SEO can be a daunting task for any brand.

Failing to Use Diverse Formats

Blogs might be your forte and your YouTube tutorials could be spotless, but the internet is an evolving beast and content marketing is constantly changing. Over the past few years, visually-appealing content such as animated content, videos, livestreams, and infographics have become much more prominent. If you stick to articles only, you’re not only failing to tap into a great engagement opportunity, but you’re also giving search engines a solid reason to lower your ranking. 

Diverse content formats are there to help increase customer engagement, boost traffic on your site, and provide you with more social-worthy posts, too. It’s a triple-win for your business and a seamless way to make your digital footprint more relevant in the eyes of search engines.  

Your Site isn’t User-Friendly

In addition to optimal speed to avoid long loading times and poorly loaded content, your site needs more to be considered truly user-friendly. These features that define user-friendliness will vary from one market to another, one target demographic to another, but some are considered golden rules of functionality and aesthetics that fuel user satisfaction. 

For example, mobile compatibility is a must-have for your users to be able to enjoy your content and get to know your brand via more than just their computers. Accessibility for users of various abilities is another rising need for visually-impaired and differently-abled users to browse your site. Google and other search engines value such recognition of emerging trends and new technical capabilities sites should offer. 

Out of a slew of potential site issues that could be causing you to slowly drop a few positions in the SERPs, the listed are the most common even among long-standing brands. Whether you sell online or you only use your site to educate and engage your customers, you still need to invest time and effort into an overarching SEO strategy that will help you retain your position in the search results. Only then can you expect more people to find your business and connect with your brand for the long haul.