There are three main reasons I believe why some websites have trouble reaching the top spot of SERPs.

In order they are:

  1. There aren’t enough signals to Google that the website is good enough
  2. The content on the site isn’t good enough
  3. Technically there are issues going on which need addressing

1. There aren’t enough signals to Google that the website is good enough

  • You don’t have enough links
  • You don’t have enough reviews
  • You don’t have enough mentions on other websites

Google has 200+ signals but these are the main ones. Google needs lots of positive signals on an ongoing basis for it to give you love back.

If you think you’re lacking in any of these areas you’ll need to look at:

  • Backlink strategy
  • Building up reviews using online tools like Trustpilot, Feefo & TrustedReviews
  • PR and outreach campaigns to build up your presence elsewhere, often in the form of press releases but also guest blogs and contributor pieces.

2. The content on the site isn’t good enough

  • You’ve done the bare minimum on the content that could potentially rank
  • You’ve used the same content as other people
  • You didn’t think about your audience enough to write content they are searching for or want to read

Content is so important for users and search engines. Never under-estimate the time it takes to write good content, nor neglect your research beforehand.

For more information on how to write good copy take a look at this post.

If you need help with optimising your landing pages, then read more here.

3. Technically, there are issues going on which need addressing

  • Your site is not built very well (or is the same as everyone else)
  • Your site isn’t very fast
  • Your site doesn’t work very well on mobile

Creating great content is one thing, but ensuring Googlebot can crawl, interpret and index it efficiently is another! Technical SEO plays an important role in the overall ranking of your website, and should not be overlooked.

From migrating websites to just improving page speed, a whole array of technical audits, code updates and fixes can be deployed to give your site a greater chance of being loved by search engines.

Discover more about schema; learn how to monitor and analyse website performance; or find out about mobile first indexing with these previous blog articles from our experts.

Hopefully that’s given you some things to investigate. If you’re really struggling and would like an agency to take the burden off your hands then get in touch. We offer SEO audits and retainer packages as well as content marketing campaigns to help our clients dominate the SERPs (search engine result pages).

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Meet the author ...

Andy Headington

CEO

Andy has been part of Adido since it was an idea in a pub nearly twenty years ago. He loves to work with the Adido team and all of the clients on board asking challenging questions and ...