As a small business owner, you might have found yourself wearing many hats just to keep your business afloat. While you may perform certain functions diligently, you’re only human, and, naturally, some things might get away from you.
Marketing is one of the tasks that can be a bit complicated, more so online marketing where trends change rapidly. So, even if you created a successful SEO strategy, don’t be surprised to find that your online performance starts dropping a few months down the line, yet you cannot figure out why.
The silver lining is that there are signs that indicate potential inefficiencies in your strategy that you might need to work on to save your brand’s online presence.
Let’s take a look at three signs you might need an improved small business SEO strategy.
1. Drop in Primary Keyword Rankings
What does it mean when you search for your business online one day and find Google ranking you a bit lower if anywhere on the first page? A drop in primary keyword ranking means your business will not be as visible online as you’d like. This could be because you have not updated your keywords while your competitors already have.
Small business SEO guidelines dictate that you have to keep up with the keyword trends in order for your business to stay relevant on the search engine results page. Search engines use algorithms and, as long as you keep your keywords updated and relevant, search engines will give you a higher rank online.
2. Traffic Is Low, Bounce Rate is High
Website traffic is one of the metrics used to measure SEO success, and when yours is lower than usual or non-existent, there might be a severe problem in your SEO strategy. Couple the low traffic with the fact that people spend less than a minute on your site, then you might need to take your SEO strategy back to the drawing board.
Low traffic and bounce rates often go hand in hand, which usually means that your website is not user-friendly. If a consumer clicks on your website and feels overwhelmed or confused, they will not hesitate to close the tab, and chances are that they may never return.
Website simplicity is a big part of SEO that search engines consider when ranking your small business online. Clean up your website by writing clear and simple text, make it easy to navigate, and improve web page load times for consumers, and you will notice a drastic traffic improvement.
3. Low to No Conversions in Business
Sometimes, everything might seem to be going right. You might be recording high web traffic numbers with people spending a considerable amount of time on your site. Despite this, no one is buying your products.
This can be a highly worrying issue because it is hard to understand why consumers will not take the final step of making a purchase. It could be they don’t understand your product, or the checkout process is too long.
Whatever the case, analyze user activity on your website using tools such as heatmaps to understand how you can make your online store a lot more user-friendly.
Do Your Research
SEO is like any traditional marketing strategy; it needs constant updating and improvement. You cannot use the same SEO strategy for months on end without making any modifications and expect excellent results all through. Trends change, and so do algorithms, so take your time to do research and find out what keywords work for a small business like yours and what you can do to improve your small business SEO strategy.