Is Your SEO Not Working? - Connections Marketing

Achieving high-performing SEO is a must for any brand with an online presence. At its core, the goal is simple: it’s Google’s way of matching what online searchers want and content that pops up to answer their questions. And yet it’s common for brands to fall short in this area due to the complex set of factors that can be hard to keep up with in a fast-changing environment. If your brand struggles with a feeble online presence, there could be a number of culprits:

Low Quality Content
Misuse of Keywords
Poor Web Design
Inadequate Backlinks
Improper Link Building

Even if fixing it isn’t in your wheelhouse, understanding the issue is a crucial first step to getting search engines to produce better results for your brand.

Using Outdated SEO Practices

SEO has evolved quickly, so it’s understandable that some brands’ approaches are stuck in the past. Initially, the idea was pretty basic: insert key words throughout your site to boost your search engine ranking. Eventually, the application of internal and outbound links became just as important. The problem is that people who fail to put in the hard work and update their practices end up getting pinged by Google for their mistakes.

Relying Too Much on AI for Content Creation

AI is great for a lot of things, but if you rely too much on it you won’t have quality content for your website and will lose the trust of consumers. If people visiting your site sense they are reading descriptions produced by ChatGPT, they will be turned off and go somewhere else for what they need. Online viewers like authenticity, and that translates to articles, blogs and other content produced by good writers and subject matter experts.

As Search Engine Land explains, “Google has mechanisms to detect automatically generated low-quality spammy material.” That doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t use AI at all for content creation. Just that they shouldn’t rely too heavily on it – and instead focus on producing top-notch output that matches their individual search criteria.

Lack of Mobile Device Optimization

Are all your web pages optimized to drive mobile device users back to your site? WebFx reports that half of web traffic derives from cell phones, which is why the details on those pages must scale automatically when necessary. A whole range of features on the back end can be designed to adjust according to the device being used by prospective customers. A good strategy will typically cover these bases:

Mobile-friendly web design
Adjustable font sizes
Use of certain defaults
Desktop, tablet and mobile settings
Column values
Other automatic adjustments

If your SEO is suffering, double-check your design settings for any oversight that could negatively impact the image someone else is seeing. This is one area where a web expert is worth the investment, since they can enhance every element of your website so it matches the view and functionality of the screen being used on the other end.

Poor or Outdated Backlinks

This one can be a doozy. Many marketing teams implement backlinks and rely on them to drive traffic back to their sites. The thing is, backlinks are only as good as the content on the page they derive from, and most businesses don’t actively monitor or control all of those other sites. SEO that tries too hard to insert links across the web will eventually suffer the consequences, as that practice can result in linking to pages that appear strange or are no longer relevant or applicable.

When was the last time you checked your backlinks? Take a look, remove bad ones, and make other link adjustments that will get your SEO back to where you need it.

Let a Trusted & Experienced Digital Marketing Agency Help You Rebuild Your SEO

Without a dedicated team of experts, your best and most cost-effective bet is to outsource your SEO solutions to a trusted and experienced digital marketing agency. Our team at Connections Marketing can get to the root of your SEO woes by figuring out what is working and where you need help.