We all get those emails telling you how your site has all sorts of issues and fails the SEO test of that person from seoexpert@yahoo or whatever that sent it to you. Even some of the national companies have tests built for you to fail as a selling point. In actuality, we all could do it. With the ideal for ranking for terms changing regularly and the number of pages on an actual website growing, I could easily give you a report where your site is failing to be perfect at 99 or 1,000 different individual things like content length, metadata, speed, images, link strength, etc. It is pretty easy to paint a negative picture and use scare tactics for the sale. The truth is almost every site has problems. Even sites doing well with their SEO presence aren’t optimized perfectly or could be optimized for different terms, so the fail sales tactic is a bit of a gimmick. Though there are hundreds of things you could not be doing perfectly, the hardest thing to do is pick which things will actually move the needle, and then address them efficiently.
Addressing Important SEO Problems With Solutions
In actuality, every search that is done on a search engine has its own competitive landscape. You simply have to be better than the competitors in your marketplace in the eyes of the search engine. If your competitors have better content than you, you need better content. If they have much stronger link profiles than you, you need a stronger link profile. This all comes down to the page on your site vs. the pages that are ranking better than you. The only real way to tell what your most important problems are is to use them in comparison to those that have placement for the search terms you are going after. Since each search is different and pages on your site are typically geared toward individual search concepts, each search may have different important issues. Though often you run into the same competitors over and over in your industry due to the link strength of a site being so important, it is good to look at your important searches and understand where to put your resources.
If you have link strength and aren’t showing up for a term, then the best way to move the needle may be to analyze your content in relation to the others that rank above you, or perhaps your competitors are all loading far more quickly than you are. If it is a local term, your competitors may have better geographic placement, more reviews, or a GMB that targets that search concept better than you.
Custom SEO Plans That Can Change With The Times
As an A+ BBB search expert, I have been doing this for over 12 years now and the biggest value I bring my customers is to take their site from theoretical and generic SEO needs to actual actionable plans that move the needle. That can change by time and place and by search phrase that you target. This is why I make custom plans and avoid the generic, and also why I spend time each month going through my client data and how it relates to recent Google adjustments and changes so that we can move forward the most efficient way. I have worked with other companies or seen reports from companies that failed my new prospects that just churn out generic rankings or traffic numbers without any thought. This is easy to do but it adds no value to the customer. If we saw a traffic decrease or a drop in calls, we need to understand why and adjust our plan to fix things, not just blindly move forward doing generic things that are likely out of date, which I see all too often.
With a good SEO or Digital Marketing consultant, you should be ready to be guided through this world with the ability to make adjustments on the fly. When Google suddenly starts rewarding an area where you are weak, we need to be able to turn and remedy that by making you strong there. That may mean a major change from where we initially were headed in the coming months, but in the end it puts you in a better position to get found and get more customers.
Remember the next time you get sent or are proposed one of those fail reports with a list of things you are doing wrong that they are taking the lazy approach. You need someone that looks at your individual situation and creates a plan to differentiate you from your competitors and move you forward.
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