7min
If you're a website owner, you know how frustrating it is to have a website that doesn't rank high in search engines. This can lead to a drastic decrease in leads or sales. Many other marketers are in the same position as you: they blog regularly, have all the features they need on their website, and have done their research when it comes to keywords. However, they still don't appear on the first page of the results.
This can be frustrating, especially when you put in lots of effort with no results and no clear indication as to why the effort isn't paying off.
In this article, we explain 10 reasons why your website does not rank on Google or any search engine. You should consider one or more of the following factors if you want your website to rank well.
Why Isn't Your Website Ranking Well on Google?
1. Slow Loading Speed on Your Site
Web pages on mobile devices take an average of five or six seconds to load. And that's not even considering how long it'll take for all the content to load. The average time people will stay on a page before leaving is only three seconds. That means people are getting frustrated because their needs aren't being met fast enough. Product managers need to take this into account and work to decrease the loading time of web pages on mobile devices.
Engagement metrics, such as whether users stay on your site or "bounce" off, are one way Google determines whether your site is valuable to users. If it is, your site will help improve your search engine rankings. Likewise, if your site has a high ranking, it is likely because users find it valuable.
The loading time of your page is a principal factor in engagement. Search engines may not be able to assess your site's value if users have to wait too long.
2. Your Content Lacks Credibility
All businesses will only be successful if they generate enough trust from potential customers. This means that every company should always think about ways to build trust with their target audience. Trust is essential for any business-consumer relationship because it is the foundation for any kind of connection or transaction.
As buyers, this may seem obvious, but you should always ask: What are you doing to build trust?
Let's start with what doesn't build trust:
Being constantly bombarded with sales pitches is something that we've all experienced at one point or another when we're just trying to find some honest information or help. However, just because this is a common occurrence doesn't make it effective.
People need to feel a sense of fulfillment to be happy. We all have different interests and opinions, so it's impossible to make everyone happy. However, when people are aware that they are being heard, they're more likely to continue to listen. If a customer feels like you're trying to sell them something that they do not need, they may quickly lose interest. When you're able to understand a customer's needs and provide them with enough information to make an informed decision, you can start to solve their problem.
3. Your Content Targets the Wrong Keywords
If you want your website to rank high on search engines, it is important to have clear and concise content. This way, your potential customers will be able to understand what you are offering without having to sift through a bunch of industry jargon. Researching keywords for your content can help you achieve this goal. Keep in mind that your blog articles are not the only pages on your website.
Optimising your website for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) begins with a clear and concise description of your product or service. Your service or product needs to be easily accessible and directly address customers' pain points. Ensure the language you use is appropriate for your audience as well. When writing for SEO, it is important to keep in mind the keywords and phrases professionals in different fields use. By choosing the right keywords, you will help your website rank higher in search engines as well as help you reach potential customers.
4. You Don't Publish Regularly
Quality > quantity when it comes to blogging - that's not to say that you shouldn't aim to publish content regularly, but rather that the quality of your content is more important than how often you hit publish. Why? Because even if you're pumping out blog posts left, right, and center, if they're not well-written and informative, they're not able to do much in the way of positively impacting your search engine rankings.
Aim to publish a minimum of two to three pieces of new content each week. Not only does this help to keep you in front of your target audience, but it also helps to remind those who are already familiar with you and your work that you're still relevant and active.
Additionally, if Google notices you're publishing content regularly, it will adjust its crawl timelines on your site and visit more frequently.
If you make regular publishing a habit, you get Google to crawl your content more often - within minutes or hours for some of our content all-stars - which is good for your content's ranking prospects.
5. You Are Not Following SEO Best Practices
The basics of on-page SEO include having an SSL certificate for your site and using appropriate headers, titles, and meta descriptions.
To optimise your site for search engines, you should present your content as the most relevant to the keywords users search for.
As quickly and efficiently as possible, Google's search engine results pages provide relevant and helpful content related to your search.
6. Your Website Lacks Effective Navigation and Organisation
The organisation of your website can have a significant impact on where you rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). If users land on a page on your site and then quickly "bounce" back to the SERP to find a better answer, Google will take that as a sign that your site isn't very good. A high bounce rate is bad for your ranking because it tells Google that people aren't sticking around to read your content. If you want to improve your ranking, you need to work on reducing your bounce rate.
7. Your Market Is Fiercely Competitive
Here's the thing- when it comes to ranking in different industries, some will be more of a challenge than others. Take inbound marketing agencies as an example- it'll be significantly more difficult for us to rank highly for inbound marketing searches. Because we're marketers discussing marketing, we discuss marketing. It's a crowded market.
Not every industry or market is the same, and that is why it is important to take the best practices listed in this article into account. Just because you don't see many other blast-resistant building manufacturers utilising this content on their websites, doesn't mean that you should ignore what could be helpful tips for your market.
A competitive market is a bit like a high-stakes game of poker. You can't make any mistakes, and it might take a while to see your rankings move up, even if you're playing your cards right. Therefore, if you haven't been featured yet, it may just take some extra time.
To come out on top in a competitive market, your content strategy will need to be even more thoughtful and bold. How can you approach your industry from a new angle that hasn't been explored yet? What are some ways you can talk about it differently? Are there any aspects of your field that are underrepresented? Keep these questions in mind as you brainstorm ways to make your content stand out from the rest.
8. There Is No Credible Author Credited in Your Post
As mentioned previously, all industries are not created equal.
A Google E.A.T. update was released in 2018 that began taking into account the author of blogs on websites.
Specifically, this affects content about personal health, medicine, and legal issues. This is where E.A.T. comes in.
E.A.T. represents Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.
For sites with content written by credible experts in their field, the goal is to reward them for material that will impact people's health, medical care, or legal perspective. After all, who would you rather get information about the latest advancements in medical procedures from - some random freelancer or an experienced doctor that you trust? Google prefers the latter option as well.
9. Page Tags Set To "No-Index"
No-index meta tags are essentially a way of telling search engines not to crawl or rank certain pages on your website.
So why would you want to use this setting?
Well, let's say you have an offer thank-you page or a download page. You may not want people to be able to find these pages through a search engine, but you don't want to block them entirely either.
In this case, using the no-index setting would be the best alternative.
Different platforms have different methods of doing this (whether it is per page or across entire sections of a site). By going to Settings and removing the no-index code, you can update the tag on a single website or landing page in HubSpot.
10. Posts From the Past Aren't Optimised
You don't hang a trophy on the wall for ranking on Google's first page.
Keeping up with it is a constant challenge, and if you don't do your best to keep up, you will most likely fall behind.
Likewise, if your content from years ago still doesn't rank, it's not your fault. It may be time to revisit and rework old content, especially if it is missing an imperative element that people want to know about.
The best content strategy doesn't just focus on creating new posts, but also on optimising older posts.
If you don't know what you're optimising for, you may not think about optimising all of your articles (depending on how much content you've produced in the past).
The most effective return on investment comes from investing more time in specific "buckets" of articles. The articles in this category have high bounce rates, are stuck on Google's second or third page, and receive a lot of impressions but few clicks.
Ranking Can Seem Overwhelming. Start Here.
A site or content's ranking may suffer for a variety of reasons, and it can be tempting to try and optimise every aspect of it at once. However, it's important to focus on making progress instead of striving for perfection. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a general idea of where your gaps are so you can begin addressing them as soon as possible. In many cases, the quality of your website's content will be responsible for the issues you encounter.
Moreover, you may choose which items from the list above you wish to act upon. SEO-optimised, regularly updated, helpful, and trustworthy content on a fast website can only get you so far.
Content trainers usually begin by discussing trust with their clients. Determine whether your content is helpful or promotional by considering your prospects and examining it (or having someone else do it).
Once you have the compass set for the direction your content and site need to be taking and the steps you need to take to get there, you’ve built the foundation to start seeing some improvement in your rankings.
