7 Reasons SEO is Not Working For Your Business

Let’s begin by defining what we mean by search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure we are talking about the same thing:

According to Google, SEO is “helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine.”

Ranking high on Google and other popular search engine result pages (SERPs) for high volume, transactional search terms is desired by most brands big and small.

Marketers (agencies and individual contractors) know this and offer products and services to help improve your visibility in search results.

In far too many cases, small business owners especially, wind up paying a lot of money for SEO services and don’t get the results they are looking for.

So, why is SEO not working for your business?

1. Unrealistic Expectations
SEO is not a short-term game plan. It takes time, often longer than most small businesses would like to see meaningful results. Hyper-competitive industries with entrenched brands ranking at the top of SERPs can be very difficult, if not impossible, to break into.   

2. Limited Resources
The foundation of an effective SEO campaign is solid keyword research, quality content based on the keyword, and a website that is built with the correct foundation for technical SEO. This requires the right tools, technology and adequate time to implement.

3. Bad Data
Proper keyword research will reveal short-tail and long-tail keywords that your target audience is searching for. Leveraging SEO tools like SEMrush (which we use and recommend) makes performing this research much easier and provides high-quality data from multiple search engines.  SEMrush and similar tools can also track the performance where your website is ranking for keywords that are important to your brand.

4. Taking Shortcuts
There are no shortcuts to success in SEO. Trying to “trick” or “game” search algorithms is a bad idea and never works out in the long run. While it might be tempting to use black hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, or buying backlinks to quickly boost your website’s ranking, these practices are risky and unsustainable. Search engines like Google continually update their algorithms to detect and penalize such manipulative tactics, which can result in severe penalties, including significant drops in ranking or even complete removal from search results

5. Poor Content
Poorly written content will tank your SEO efforts.

What is poorly written content?

  • Articles that are overly reliant on AI-generated content
  • The same content shared across multiple websites
  • Content that tries to “game” search algorithms through keyword stuffing and other tactics

6. Not paying attention to Local Search 
Google continues to be the most popular search engine. Optimizing the content on your brand’s Google Business Profile is essential.

7. Changing Search Landscape
AI is changing the way the SERPs present results to search queries. As AI continues to evolve, the way people search and the way results are displayed will change.

Should you ignore SEO?

Absolutely NOT!

At the core of effective SEO is providing information and answering questions for your target audience with articles just like this one.

Well-written content that is written for human consumption and is properly optimized for search will provide value to the people you want to serve.

Furthermore, this content can serve as a basis for email marketing and social media posts.

If appearing high in search engines is critical for your business, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) via Google Ads and other search engine ad platforms is the only way to guarantee visibility. 

For most brands, we recommend a multifaceted approach that includes quality organic SEO rooted in quality content focused on your target audience, strategic SEM based on your budget, and Local Search tactics for businesses that require local traffic.

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