Listen, nobody at Google actually “hates” your website – well, most likely. Unless you made fun of Larry Page in high school or something, the search giant has nothing personal against you or your business. The real problem lies elsewhere. Perhaps you don’t understand Google’s formula, or you aren’t taking the proper steps to maximize your website’s SEO.
So instead of lamenting the fact that Google ignores your site, let’s rundown some of the possible reasons you’re not ranking well with the world’s biggest search engine.
You don’t have enough content
In previous articles on our blog, we’ve emphasized the importance of quality blogs rather than quantity of blogs. However, that doesn’t mean you can make do with one blog article a week just because it’s really good. You should be aiming to update your blog at least twice a week, although thrice is ideal.
By writing more blogs, you increase the number of pages on your website and grow the size of your online footprint. The bigger your online footprint, the more relevant you appear in Google’s eyes. And if Google thinks you’re a relevant site, you’re going to show up higher in search results.
You’re not practicing good SEO with your content
There are two qualities every single one of your blogs should have: internal links and generous usage of keywords. If you’re already utilizing inbound marketing strategies, then you should have identified the keywords that are used most frequently in searches about your field/market. You need to be using those keywords throughout all of your articles – in fact, keywords are great ways to come up with blog topics; center an entire blog around one of your keywords. Also, try to feature 1-2 keywords in every blog headline as well.
As for the importance of links, this goes back to Google’s formula and method of indexing the World Wide Web. Google uses a web crawler to travel the internet, cataloguing everything as it goes. The crawler travels from page to page via links, so every time you include a link in an article, it means the crawler has to make another pass through your website. Additionally, linking to reputable sites helps boost your relevance as well. If you can manage to convince another site to link back to some of your articles (a process known as “link building”), that can really boost your search rankings.
Your content isn’t relevant
No one should understand your market better than you do. So ask yourself: are you writing about the stuff that people really care about? It’s not enough to just post content on your website – the content has to be something a potential customer would find valuable and informative and that they are search the Internet for. Are you providing that?
Ideally, you want to write blogs that answer questions or solve problems that potential customers will have. Because those are the things they will be searching Google for. Your site can’t rank highly on Google if no one is trying to find content like yours.
You aren’t cross-promoting
Another important ingredient of the inbound marketing formula is social media. You should have accounts/pages for your business on all of the major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest), and be updating the pages regularly. Then, whenever you post new content, be sure to share links to it on your social media channels. Google’s search algorithms factor in social media posts when providing results, so cross-promotion on social media can help your search results ranking.
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