You can select multiple device types to stop any issues. But sometimes, phones act differently than the desktop Chrome browser does (even when set on mobile view), so it’s always best to check on a physical phone itself. And don’t forget to check on both Android and iOS. Test if links work, test if scrolling works, test the entire checkout process, test, test, test. Ask your friends to test, ask your mom to test ask your cat to test. If the cat can use it, you’re good to go. In addition to that,
consider that CSS hidden content also follows the mobile-first mentality.
Feel comfortable to combine desktop columns into sliders, or compress long paragraphs of text into dropdowns. For example, on an eCommerce website, you might have a small description before your products, on the category page. If on mobile devices the text pushes the products too far down, the users won’t be able to quickly see them when they load the page. You can shorten the mobile description by using a ‘read more’ link which triggers a dropdown with the rest of the content. 8. You don’t analyze and you underestimate your competition “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu Deep, isn’t it? Google Analytics and Search Console are very good friends, but they only show you data for your own website. Sometimes, it’s not enough to only do research about yourself. You have to analyze your competition! Not doing this, might end up in saying that SEO does not work for your website. That’s why having an SEO Tools
Set like CognitiveSEO is a good idea. You can analyze and monitor your competitors to see how they perform and find gaps. So, if you want to improve your SEO campaigns, make sure you always perform an SEO Competitor Analysis. 9. You’ve skipped keyword research New clients often come to me because they are not satisfied with the results they got from their previous SEO partners. Many times, after a quick analysis, I can spot that the title tags and meta descriptions have not been optimized at all! That lets me know that keyword research hasn’t been performed. I’ve seen many ‘SEO pack’ offers around, which are mostly PBNs or different link building tactics. 5 links per month… 10 links per month… and so on. It baffles me and I don’t agree with it, but I guess it’s about money…
They’re easy to sell and can often offer quick results. But those r
If you have a huge website with a lot of filters,
make sure you prioritize crawlability and indexability by optimizing your faceted navigation. Sometimes, it might be design (if your website is too outdated for your audience). Other times, it might be UX. It’s different from website to website. That’s why an SEO audit is crucial for your website’s success, especially if your website is huge. But not just any SEO audit will do. You need an SEO Audit that actually looks in-depth at all your issues and then prioritizes them properly. 11. You’re ignoring
structure, click depth & internal linking A website’s structure defines
how easily users and search engines will navigate and understand your content. Make sure you structure your website accordingly. You should always keep important pages maximum 3 clicks away from your homepage. If you’re using pagination, make sure all your pages are linked to from the first archive/category page. Moreover, if you’re not doubling down already on internal links, you should. Use your blog to always link to important pages, such as product category pages, using relevant and keyword rich anchor texts. There’s no penalty for using too many internal links. Well… just don’t make everything an internal link and you’ll be fine. 12. You’re ignoring backlinks I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help most of my clients rank high with very few links if any links at all. But once in a while, there are
projects that even the best SEOs can’t handle without actively pursuing backlinks.
I like to think of myself as being able to do everything without links, but I also what to be as efficient as possible. Getting backlinks is not bad. They’re just used improperly. In some cases, your website simply needs more authority. And the fastest way to build it is by having quality backlinks. If the number of links your competitors have far outweighs yours, you’ll have a hard time outranking them. Backlinks for SEO Sometimes, it might just mean it takes longer to see results, considering you’re doing everything else right. Other times, it’s just plain impossible.
Links can help you kickstart that initial progress to
help you gain your client’s trust and secure a long-term deal. The best thing you can do is to build relationships, through content marketing and shareable content, such as case studies or interviews with industry-leading experts. Don’t just stop at link building. Try to be involved and build a small community. That’s what Google likes. Sometimes, however… you can just buy the links. Of course, you don’t want to buy and spammy links that might get
your website penalized. But it’s wise to understand that links are ads and ads are paid for. The internet works based on ads, so own it. You can always nofollow your paid links (just like Google tells you to do). Nofollow links can also improve rankings and I’ve seen this with my own eyes on my own clients. 13. You don’t understand your audience The audience
is much more important for SEO than you think. It can make or
break your SEO strategies. You might be saying: neh, SEO is not working for me when the actual problem is the way you tackle your audience. You might have the best interest and the greatest information in your content marketing strategy. But if you don’t deliver it in the right format or tone of voice, you won’t be getting the best results. Maybe your audience prefers video content. Then stop spending so much time writing articles. Just use your video scripts as repurposed content on your blog instead. SEO Targeted Audience Make sure you understand your audience well and make decisions based on that. 14. You’ve externalized to the wrong SEO agency I hate talking about this, but finding a good SEO
company or digital marketing agency isn’t an easy task. Even more
in the pandemic era of 2020-2021, people gambling data turkey have rebranded as experts in digital marketing fields. Much to say… they’re not really experts. So, be very picky when choosing who you work with. Here are some more things to look after when hiring an SEO company. On the other hand, if you are an SEO company, here’s how to convince your clients to buy your SEO services. 15. You’re not monitoring your results Correctly monitoring results is a very difficult task. Sometimes, is not that SEO does not work
That’s because monitoring isn’t just about traffic and
conversion rate optimization. It’s about discovering new opportunities to do things better. But even so, whether it’s a drop in traffic or a drop in co when customers send you direct messages nversions, the sooner you see it, the sooner you’ll be able to fix it. Monitoring SEO Results There are many tricks, such as using Google Search Console to identify secondary keywords for articles that are already
ranking pretty well. Go to the Performance Section, select a page that’s already ranking well and then go back to the Queries section. Activate Positions and CTR and look for those phrases that have a good click through rate. GSC SEO trick You can then start adding that keyword to your content to rank better for it in the search engines. If you want even better results, try out the CognitiveSEO Content Optimization Tool. Or, you can use a Secondary Dimension
(Behaviour > Landing Page) on the Organic Traffic
Channel in Google Analytics to figure snbd host out which pages converted the best. Then you can mix those with the Google Search Console query data to know (with approximation) which set of keywords bring the most conversions. Google Analytics SEO Trick Tools such as Google Analytics have a lot of filters that can help you figure out what exactly happened on your website so make sure you use them for better
SEO results. I hope this list of 15 reasons why your SEO
doesn’t work helps you figure out what you’ve been doing wrong or at least gives you a new perspective on your SEO campaigns. Complex SEO strategies and tactics are awesome, but you always have to make sure you stick to the basics first. Do you think there are other reasons why someone’s SEO strategy might not work? Share them with us in the comments section below.