There are many reasons why you may not rank well in search engines, here are some you should know about;
- Internal & External Links
- Affiliate Ads
- Site Speed
- Categories and Tags
- Posts and Pages
- Old Posts
- Reviews
- Comments
- Pictures
Internal & External Links
When you have a number of posts on your blog, if you don’t have posts that link to other relevant posts on your blog then you may not rank as an authority because if you write pillar posts it means that you should have relevant posts that lead from and to your pillar post. This lets the search engines know you know what you are writing about, or, in other words, you are an authority.
Think about it this way, if someone reads one of your posts and they enjoy it, common sense dictates that will want more relevant information so there should be links to other posts on your blog.
What is called ‘good link juice’ are people who link to your posts. This is another of showing the search engines that not only do you know about your subject but someone else also agrees. Be careful here, don’t do a ‘tit for tat’. That means you don’t do a review of another site and ask them to do the same for you. This is frowned upon.
Affiliate Ads
When you ad affiliate links in your post, don’t put too many. If you’ve ever been on a website to read an article you are interested then you know how annoying it is to have that article filled with affiliate ads. It makes for a very bad user experience.
Google is looking out for its users and they also think those websites should rank lower and let real content writers rise to the top.
If you do use affiliate links make sure you remove the ‘follow’ text with ‘sponsored’. This helps Google know that you are owning up to your ads and will not penalise you as much as someone who has a ‘follow’ link.
Site Speed
This seems to be the new mantra of the internet. The ‘all-important’ metric by which you shall be judged.
Yep, nobody likes waiting for a site to load. The only ones that can get away with it are the large corporations, which you have to wait for because you need their services.
Site speed can be slowed down by various factors.
- Your hosting company doesn’t have enough bandwidth.
- Plugins that interfere with the function of your website.
- Only having a local server instead of a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
- Using competing keywords. Words that you use too often on each of your posts.
- Picture files too large.
- CTA’s (Call To Action buttons)
- Pages with a lot of content, affiliate links, CTA’s and pictures.
The truth is, if you have a lot of extraneous information on your website, it will slow down your site. Lean and mean is the answer. Funnily enough, plain text doesn’t slow your site down, it’s all the other stuff.
Having said that, you also need to balance your site with well crafted pages that readers will enjoy and come back for more.
Categories and Tags
Having too many categories and tags. Recommended is around 5 categories and 5 tags on each post, maximum.
Understanding how to use them is very important.
Let’s say you have an electronics company. Your categories may be; Cameras, Laptops, Photocopiers, Televisions and Entertainment Systems.
So you add products to each category. Then for tags for one post, which is about the 5 best cameras for 2020, could be, Canon, Minolta, Sony etc.
So how this looks is if your tags are listed down the sidebar you get a sense of what to look for;
Canon
Minolta
Sony
Now, if you also have a TV by Sony or a Laptop by Canon, then these posts will be brought up in the search bar. But if your tag says camera, for a post on cameras then that tag will bring up those posts on cameras.
By tagging your posts correctly, you are helping your user to find the right post.
You have to be careful about generic tags, especially ones like, speaker. Think of all the synonyms that word has. So with a word like that you have to be specific, like, Sony speakers etc.
The other thing about generic tags is not to then duplicate your tag. For instance, a tag like, travel could cover trains, buses, planes, cars etc. So one word would only be necessary on your post.
Posts and Pages
Not having enough content can hurt you especially if all you use it for is affiliate links.
Deleting posts or pages can create 404 errors. If you have outward-bound links or backlinks, it hurts you and any company that links into your post.
If you would like a free resource sheet for the top 5 reasons to not delete posts or pages, then you can click this button;
You can also read my post on Categories and Tags
Old Posts
These are a valuable resource. Revitalise them and also make sure you link them to your pillar posts. If they are pillar posts then link back to them from your other posts.
The only problem with old posts is if they are not relevant anymore then you may want to get rid of them. But rather than get rid of them because they may have links etc, use a 301 redirect.
Reviews
Writing a review to a website that you love can help your SEO immensely. But, it does require that you write a very in depth post about the other website/post.
You don’t even have to link to that post, people can search for it themselves, your content will give them enough information to find the other site.
When you have written a top post, one of two things can happen;
- If they use Google alert (which larger companies tend to use) then they will find your post, and if well written will link to it.
- You can send them a PM with a link to your post asking them if they like what you have written. Don’t ask them for a link back, let them come to that decision on their own.
Never expect another site to link to your site just because you’ve linked to theirs. It also doesn’t look good to Google when two sites are linked together, it smacks of, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Comments
If you get lots of comments on your posts, this can help in your ranking. The comments need to be quality comments, not just, ‘oh, great site, love what you’ve written’. The comment should relate to the post you have written preferably using the exact keywords used in your post.
It’s also good practice to comment on other people’s posts, like above but no less than 25 words.
It stands to reason if you comment on a good site you will get noticed and it could lead to a partnership or them linking to your site if you are in the same niche.
Pictures
All your pictures need to be compressed and be relevant to your post.
Google ranks pictures by their relevancy. So make sure you write a good descriptive of the picture you are adding to your post. Pictures rank on their own plus people who are in love with Pinterest could pin your picture on their boards.
Summary
I hope you have found this post to be useful. There is a lot to consider, but, with time, all this will become second nature. Creating a great website requires a lot of work and it takes time.
Very rarely does anyone just starting out make it within 6 months, so, give yourself time to develop a great website. Don’t let someone else’s 5 years of work faze you. You’ll get there too.