3 Instant Killers Of All Your SEO Efforts
SEO is one of the most thrown about terms within the online marketing world, and the amount of agencies formed just for this alone runs in the thousands.
The problem is, many so called “SEO experts” fail to realize that the number of hits to a website means absolutely nothing if there are zero conversions (many would argue, but that’s just the simple truth!).
All you hear is how fast they will get you on the first page of Google, which is not a bad thing (don’t get me wrong!), but is that all?
You see, regardless of how well you rank on any search engine, if there is no proper house keeping, all your efforts and money are wasted.
What do you mean by House Keeping?
I’m glad you asked!
Well, it doesn’t involve hoovers or brooms of any sort… it has do with your website (your digital office), and if you do not sort out the 3 killers I will be sharing here, all your SEO will be of no relevance.
Let’s look at what these 3 killers are…
1. Slow Website:
I have to admit, this particular one has been a pain in the neck for me, especially as I have been revamping my website.
As you know, we are all fighting to get the attention of people within our target demographic, and when we have a website that drags when trying to load, we have already lost out in the battle.
People are no longer patient (myself included), and when something takes our “precious” time, we tend to leave quickly and look elsewhere; especially when checking information on our mobile devices.
Here’s the shocker… your content/product/service may actually be what the visitor was looking, but just because your website took forever to load, they head off… possibly to your direct competition.
So, be sure to always test your website’s speed, especially on mobile devices. You can use Google’s Page Speed Insight tool to find out what needs to be done.
I’m still working on mine as I write this post 🙁
2. Lack of Value:
We all know the term “Content is King“… which is great, but often times, we struggle to find the right voice to communicate our message to our target audience.
If your website lacks valuable content/information (something that appeals to your audience; in other words – solves their problem), then be sure to have your bounce rate skyrocket (if you have Google Analytics setup that is).
Your website should potentially answer some, if not most of the questions your visitor may have in his/her mind, and when the “what’s in it for me?” question is not addressed, he/she will head somewhere else.
Understanding your audience goes a long way, and I get the fact that we can’t always win every single person, but putting in the effort to create content that people can engage with, or providing services/products that people actually need is well worth it.
In order to set things right, spend some time to listen to your audience. If you’ve figured out where they hangout, join the forum/group and follow the discussion.
You can also put out surveys to find out what people want (especially to your email contacts); you can also do some more research via Google and use the information you gather to create something of value.
3. Website Not Mobile Friendly:
This aspect may not seem that relevant to some (if not most) of you, however, you’d be surprised at the amount of websites out there that are still not optimized for mobile.
Here’s what you need to know… Google hardly ranks websites that are not mobile friendly on mobile search results (ouch!).
They are looking to push up websites that are mobile friendly through the search results and “punish” the ones that are not. There’s a post on this on their blog (something brewing for April 21, 2015).
If your website is built on WordPress, then there’s a chance that you already have a responsive Theme installed.
But there are some Themes which often appear funny on mobile, even though they are responsive and you have spent time and money customizing it.
It’s always best to buy your Theme’s from a reliable platform like Themeforest (don’t worry, it’s not an affiliate link), so that way you can have support from the Theme developers… if you use WordPress for your website.
If your website is coded from scratch, ensure your developer gets this right from the onset, otherwise, your SEO efforts will be affected.
Let’s face it, no matter how much we enjoy all the social media networks we have accounts on, we do not own them, and we can get booted off easily if we go against their policies (a top internet marketer I follow experienced this in 2014).
If we do not spend time to sort out the important aspects of our digital space, then any form of SEO (no matter how well done) will not get us anywhere.
Unless your primary objective is just to look good when you talk about the number of visits to your website (whether they convert or not), then I’d say – Ignore this post.
But if your objective is to attract quality traffic, and then get them through a well setup funnel system, which will enable you convert them into paying customers later… then I’d say, look into it and make changes where necessary.
Thanks for reading. Now it’s your turn…
What are your thoughts on these 3 SEO killers? Do you think we should consider them or not? What other ‘SEO killer’ do you think might also be a hindrance to an effective SEO setup? Comment below and let’s talk about it.
