Woman with her head in her hand, apparently in frustration as she sits at desk that has files piled high next to her laptop.

What To Do When Your SEO Isn’t Working

ByAllie Nimmons

It’s all too common for companies to give up on SEO goals that aren’t succeeding. What’s not common is knowing why your SEO isn’t working. You might get tired, not see the results you want, or feel like you’re spending more time and money than you should. But don’t be so fast to move on. Instead, evaluate your SEO strategy to make sure you’re doing the best you can. 

Some common reasons your SEO isn’t working include:

  • Unrealistic expectations
  • Poor keyword strategy
  • Ignoring user intent
  • Only one type of SEO in play
  • Weak backlinks 
  • Inconsistent effort

Let’s look at each one individually. Then, we’ll look at what you can do to address that reason and get your SEO goals moving forward.

Unrealistic Expectations

We’ve heard so many people give up on SEO because the results aren’t coming quickly enough. You might be ranking for some keywords, but not the ones you want. Or you may see your traffic take a hit after making some technical changes and think you took a step in the wrong direction. From your view, your SEO just isn’t working.

The Solution: Adjusting the Perspective

Keep in mind that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. It can take months to see the kinds of results you might want. The key is consistency.

A rising tide lifts all ships; if your site is moving up in rankings, that means Google is rewarding you. The effort you focus on other keywords can only benefit from that progress.

And it is common for things to get a little worse before they get better. For example, if you need to set up new pages or links, which require redirects, Google may not be happy about that initially. Your daily rank tracking may even show a dip in the wrong direction at first. But the long term benefits will outweigh the starting hurdles.

Inconsistent Effort

It’s not enough to log into the site every once in a while and publish something, then expect results. SEO success requires consistent improvement and growth. It doesn’t have to be a daily activity, but what’s most important is regularity and habit. One of the most popular ways to put in consistent effort is to write SEO optimized content. If your SEO isn’t working, ask yourself how consistent you’ve been recently.

The Solution: Create a Calendar

Make it easy on yourself. Once you know what your site needs, decide how much work you can dedicate on a monthly basis. Maybe you can commit to posting to your blog once a week. Maybe it’s once a month. Maybe you can only reach out every two weeks to 3rd party sites to earn backlinks. Regardless of the frequency, pick what works best for you and stick with it.

Poor Keyword Strategy

You can’t hope to rise in rank for keywords you don’t work for. If you are going after the wrong keywords – or the right ones in the wrong way – you won’t see the success you want. The reason your SEO isn’t working could be as simple as picking the wrong keyphrases to chase.

The Solution: Research, Planning, and Implementation

Develop a strong keyword strategy through 3 main steps: research, planning, and implementation. 

  1. Use Google Search Console and SEMRush to research what keywords and terms you should be chasing. 
  2. Plan out a content calendar – or a calendar of updates and optimizations you can make to existing content using those keywords. 
  3. And finally, like we mentioned in the last tip, carry out your plan with consistency.

Ignoring User Intent

Remember that your site isn’t for you. It’s for the people who need to use it. If you’re thinking about your website in terms of how you would use it, you’re ignoring what your audience wants.

The Solution: More Research and Analyzing Feedback

This may take some trial and error. But it’s important to understand what exactly your audience wants to accomplish when they get to your site. What information are they hoping to learn? What do they hope to walk away with? What is their ideal next step? 

If possible, ask users to share their experience with your site, service, or product. You can also use tools like Google Analytics to view where users are either getting stuck or leaving the site altogether. 

For example, maybe you find that most of your users enter the site via a blog post, but never go to another page (like a sales or product page). Look at those blog posts to see if the topics are congruent with the kinds of things your ideal customers need. Is the information all up to date? Do those posts have calls to action that encourage users to want to learn more about what you have to offer?

Only One Type of SEO in Play

SEO is a multi-faceted endeavor. A combination of on-page SEO, technical SEO, local SEO, and off-page SEO may be needed in order for you to see the results you want.

The Solution: Divide and Conquer 

Figure out which types of SEO you need. Typically, you need on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. If your business has a physical location, you’ll need local SEO too. If you’re only working on backlinks, or just posting to a blog, you aren’t committing to a full strategy. Usually, it’s a good idea to get the one-time tasks out of the way, then dedicate time to on-going tasks. For example, your initial to-do list may look like:

  1. Make sure all the names and contact details are the same across all sites and profiles (local SEO)
  2.  Set up Google Business profile (local SEO)
  3. Add local schema to website (local SEO)
  4. Run an SEO audit using a tool like SEM Rush (technical SEO)
  5. Fix (or hire a company to fix) any technical issues on the site (technical SEO)
  6. Do keyword research to develop a strategy (applies to all!) 
  7. Begin writing blog posts on an ongoing schedule (on-page SEO)
  8. Reach out to other companies and sites regularly for backlinks (off-page SEO)

Weak Backlinks 

We touched on backlinks more than once so far in this post. Backlinks are all the links from other websites that lead users to your website. It’s possible you already have tons and tons of backlinks already. But quality matters more than quantity when it comes to backlinks. Backlinks from scammy or suspicious websites can make your site look worse to search engines than if you had zero backlinks. 

The Solution: Chip Away at the List Slowly

Use an SEO tool to find a comprehensive list of all your existing backlinks. One by one, at whatever pace works for you, get rid of the bad backlinks. Either reach out to the site to get bad backlinks removed, or disavow the links. This means that you ask Google to ignore those backlinks altogether. 

When Your SEO Isn’t Working, Give it a Second Look

We believe in you! SEO takes trial and error. Sometimes you have to see what  isn’t working in order to find what does. 

If you find you need a hand with your SEO strategy, give us a call.

Allie is the Chief Technology Officer at Web Pro Geeks and SEO Lead at SEO Pro Geeks. She's spent the last 10 years learning the ins and outs of WordPress, internet marketing, and design - then providing those services to everyone from freelancers to nation-wide companies. She is particularly passionate about using WordPress for search engine optimization and business growth.

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