Writing a lot of topic that target certain keywords is not enough to get into the quality content ranking, and it is underwhelming sometimes to rely on your performance on SEO content. One’s content marketing KPI falls flat at every evaluation.
In this case, you should have a content strategy overhaul, but where to start?
In every failed attempt, it is vital to find out what you did wrong in the process.
1. You Are Facing Too Much Competition
SEO is a huge competition out there and you should anticipate the impacts of your competitors to your rank. Search the keyword you are trying to rank. Who dominates the first page results? Is it websites like Wikipedia, Blog Post or Forums?
If so, you’ve got an extremely small chance to beat these reputable sites. Your website may not have the authority and credibility to outrank them, but you will have greater chance if you see companies similar to your ranking for that keyword, and all you have to do is to create better content and study what they can and cannot do as your advantage.
How We Solve It?
Create long-tail keywords that have lower search volume and competition, but better intent can play a huge role in increasing your rank and defeat your competitors. For example, it is not easy to rank high on a keyword ‘plumber’, instead it would be easier to use long-tail keywords like ‘how to fix overflowing sink’. Eventually, you will have better chances to attract potential customers and businesses.
2. Your Website May Have Technical Issues
From well-made keywords to arising technical issues, is a real deal trouble on SEO. These certain issues will hinder you from achieving your desired ranking on results page even if you have chosen the right keywords and publish quality content articles.
- Your website has not been indexed by Google (Type this in Google search: site: your-website-domain to see the number of pages indexed by Google). Submit to Google Search Console (GSC) for indexing if you found none.
- Insecure site (HTTP instead of HTTPS)
- No Robots.txt or incorrect script
- No XML Sitemap
- No Meta title and description
- No responsive website
- Slow loading speed
- Duplicate content
How We Solve It?
Connect with your website developer to see if your website has these issues, and then do a round-table discussion to fix it. Prevention is always better than cure and starting over again will cost you even greater.
3. Your Content Is Not Good Enough
Nothing could be more important and effective to rank than an article with quality content, and if the two things discussed previously have already been taken care of, then the quality of content is the reason why you became stagnant on your ranking. Quality content is the way to the top and the best weapon to counterattack your competitors. Look on the pages that rank higher than you on the same field, can you write better content than them?
Follow the E-A-T guideline to rank in Google Search Engine Results Page.
- Expertise: Does the author of the content have the credentials to be considered an expert in the industry (your bio matters a lot here)
- Authoritativeness: Is your content substantiated by research? Did you link it to authoritative/relevant websites? It shows that you have done your homework and that every claim you make is supported by evidence or research.
- Trustworthiness: Is your website trustworthy? What about the author of the article?
As you can see, these factors are cumulative which means, you cannot be an SEO expert in just a couple of days. SEO and content marketing produce results in time, and you cannot expect a website to place high on results page with unique keywords in weeks. If the content is not good enough, it will take long months but if it is great, expect to achieve a good ranking in a month.
How We Solve It?
Take your time and invest in writing quality content in order to be recognized as an expert. Be honest about the quality of your writing – not everyone can ace it. If you feel like you can’t produce the quality you need, outsource it to specialists.
4. You Don’t Have Enough Backlinks To Your Website
Lastly, backlinks aren’t just backlinks, it is one of the holy grails of SEO. When someone links your website, it is good reflection to your content. It is reliable and quality content for people to get information on, and search engines like that, a lot. But it is not easy to maintain backlinks especially if you are just a beginner and not from high DA domains.
How We Solve It?
There are a few options to consider:
- Guest posting – write guest articles for high DA websites. Most of them will allow you to place one or more links to your website in the content or in your bio.
- Produce excellent content – people link quality articles because it’s an excellent source
- Publish original research reports, whitepapers, info-graphics – any piece of original research gets quoted and linked a lot in any industry
- Write testimonials and participate in case studies for the solutions you used
You do not need to limit yourself to four ways; there are still many ways to produce a good backlink. Those are just prerequisites, and your content must be the outmost priority to be linked by others.
SEO is entirely different and not as fast as Pay-Per-Click ads, but it has the most long-term effect compared to others. The article you write today can produce good results for months to come with just a minimal investment because SEO is made to perform the way it should.
The key is to be consistent and patient. Do not just write when you feel like it, anticipate and rely on the changes and user’s preferences. Create a schedule and stick to it. And of course, publish quality content.
