The first five results from a Google search receive 67.6% of consumer clicks. If the majority of your customers aren’t looking past the first five, or even the first page of Google, what are their chances of finding your website?
Not so great, right?
The fact is whether you’re ready for it or not, SEO is only getting bigger, more competitive, and more important. If you’re at a loss for how to crack the “search code” it could be time to let the professional SEO gurus step in.
Here are 10 signs its time to pass that torch to the pros.
1. Your Website Isn’t Getting Traffic
Whether you have just launched your site, or you’ve noticed a decline in your visits, the amount of traffic your page is experiencing is a reliable measure of the impact of your digital marketing efforts.
If your Google Analytics reports are reflecting less than desirable page hits, you’re missing the mark with your SEO strategy.
It could be that the ever-evolving Google algorithm has bumped you off the radar, or perhaps you’ve been dinged with a penalty.
Finding out if and where you may have been penalized can be a confusing and time-consuming process, especially for beginners. You may have simply misused keywords or accidentally wandered into the poor practice prison.
This is the time to ask the experts for help.
Just like you are a master in your field, a well-trained SEO service can identify these hiccups in a fraction of the time and present tried and true methods to increase your website’s relevant hits.
Before you rabbit hole your way to a late-night research session, save yourself the headache by utilizing the trained professional’s skillset to diagnose this problem and get you back in those first-page search results.
2. You Can’t Find Yourself on Google
Take a moment and type in what your consumers may be searching for to find your site. Are you appearing in your search results? How far did you have to look?
We already know that the vast majority isn’t looking beyond the first page of search results; in fact, 71% of page clicks happen on page one. If you aren’t making a debut until page two or three, we are sorry to say, you aren’t being found.
So, how do you generate sales without visitors? You don’t.
Even if your website design is appealing and your content is interesting, if your customers can’t find you, they won’t be able to witness any of your hard work or absorb the value you are delivering.
If you aren’t incorporating the right keywords, backlinks, and meta tags, your content is rendered irrelevant on the search engine cutting floor.
Beyond this, even a high conversion rate of a small number of visitors still translates to a low sales margin.
3. You Aren’t Sure How Google Works
You know that using keywords to drive traffic to your site is essential and perhaps you’ve even researched which keywords are best for your content. That’s all you need to know right?
Wrong.
The problem you are facing is, keywords aren’t the only tool Google takes into account when organizing search results.
If your main focus has been including those search worthy as many times as possible, you are actually overstuffing your page with keywords and will be penalized by google for this practice.
Google uses hundreds of data points to determine how relevant you are to the search and where to place you. SEO services are familiar with these major ranking factors and many more tips and tricks to navigating this complex algorithm.
Not an expert at backlinks and HTML tags? That’s ok! Understanding Google doesn’t need to stop you from reaching your targets, just pass it over to the ones who know.
4. Your Workload Is Already Heavy
All these terms and new concepts to master are not only out of your skillset, they are time-consuming to learn.
We know: Your business is your baby. You put in crazy hours and adding another full-time job to your repertoire is unrealistic. With only 24 hours in the day, if you invest your time in researching and improving your SEO practices, what’s going to suffer?
As they say “It takes a village”.
As you grow and scale your business, your SEO needs evolve as well. If the workload is already too heavy, including a team of trained professionals to work behind the scenes on the technical front is guaranteed to bring you faster, more effective results.
5. You’re Dumping Dollars Into Paid Marketing
Are you running out of coin to pump into your paid marketing campaigns? It may take money to make money, but drying up your marketing budget is a good indicator that your long-term success is heavily dependant on SEO.
The controversial paid advertising versus SEO practices debate may be ongoing but the fact is: Paid advertising will only ever produce results for the time you have paid for (obviously). So while your sales may experience an increase from the paid ads, the spike won’t last forever.
Improving your SEO however, boasts a remarkably high return on investment over time. In fact, it’s one of the most sustainable modern marketing practices.
After the initial expense to optimize your website with quality SEO principles, the value is longterm.
Once an SEO ranking is established and maintained or even growing, you’re practically getting free advertising for your business and this ad won’t expire overnight.
6. Most of Your Sales Are From Organic Traffic
If your statistics are reflecting the majority of sales from organic hits, your business is in dire need of excellent SEO rankings. Simply put, if your organic traffic drops, your sales go with it.
Especially for online companies like e-commerce, if your business is already heavily relying on organic traffic to survive and you can’t risk plummeting sales because of a declining SEO.
It’s just not worth putting all of your eggs into the organic traffic basket only to discover it has a giant SEO hole. Investing in professional services at this stage is a forward-thinking approach to maintaining and even scaling your business and your profits. Now that’s big picture thinking!
7. Your Audience Doesn’t Trust You
Today’s consumers have serious trust issues. Think about how many ads you scroll past in a social session without even considering clicking on the ad link.
If your paid marketing and social media ads are being ‘seen’ but not converting to sales or hits, you are in need of a serious ranking upgrade.
Establishing a higher ranking on search engines and improving your visibility actually comforts your potential customers and allows them to trust your site. They assume that Google, Bing, or Yahoo are putting a stamp of approval on you by displaying your site in those prized top spots.
Trust is built across many touchpoints with your consumers so don’t give up on the social strategy, just consider some adjustments. This is the time to round out your SEO campaign approach by utilizing these tips for Instagram SEO and leveling up your Facebook campaigns.
Link these strategies together to create an authority space online and watch your sales skyrocket.
8. You’re Not Measuring Your Site
Either you never got around to setting up those valuable metric pages for your site or you find yourself clicking through them wondering what to do now. Your sales and visits metrics may be telling you that something is wrong, but you aren’t sure how to uncover the issue or make changes to improve these numbers.
If you are watching your social media insights and thinking that will suffice, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
Your website is the core of your SEO strategy, this is where the hard work will be reflected and any errors will be noticed. If you are producing duplicate content, poor keyword usage, or your linking strategies are questionable, Google will ding you for it and you need to know about it.
Understanding your metrics and where they are being affected will help you diagnose these issues and implement changes in your strategy.
Have you discovered that your page needs a cleanup? Not sure how to implement better SEO practices? Before you drag yourself back to the drawing board, consider turning to the pros to breakdown these issues and deliver tips and tricks to counteract the mistakes.
9. You Don’t Have a Clear Brand
Have a look at the authority sites you are familiar with. Notice a trend? Every one of them has a bulletproof brand.
We know it’s tempting to try to be a one-stop-shop for every kind of customer. The truth is switching up your strategy over and over, trying to draw in ‘everyone’ isn’t improving your reach, in fact, it’s hurting it.
Confusing search engines with scattered content and conflicting backlinks won’t establish you as a multipurpose search hit. Inconsistency will make you harder to find and your lack of a brand or even a niche will punish your sales.
SEO is not only improving your numbers. By narrowing in your approach, you can utilize SEO strategies to bring larger volumes of your target audience to you and establish that unwavering brand that builds trust and takes up space.
10. You Want Help
Simple as that. You’ve realized that SEO is important for your page and you want help to get started, keep growing, or fix it up.
Perhaps you don’t have much interest in delving into how it all works, or you are in need of a hands-free solution. Whatever the reason, expanding your team is a great option.
Releasing the burden of entering these unknown territories can not only relieve a huge amount of stress, but it can also free you up to focus on why you started this business, what you love to do, and even a bit of work/life balance.
No need to draw it out any longer.
But before you assign this task to your 20-year-old internet savvy intern for trial and error attempts, take into consideration how important this investment is for your business and what result you are aiming for.
Choosing a Professional SEO Service
We know that handing over even the smallest part of your business is a big deal and we don’t want to see you being taken advantage of, especially with so much weight riding on it.
Not every SEO service on the net is as successful as they claim. Take the time to review samples, ask around, and become comfortable with the company before tossing your business over to the first willing helper.
Just as you want consumers to trust you, you should be able to trust the professionals you are working with to answer your questions, provide reliable metrics, and work with you to accomplish your goals. If you are feeling the water raising over your head, refer to our guide for finding the best SEO consulting services to help you navigate this decision and level up.
Remember to watch out for companies that ‘guarantee’ your number one ranking position and trust your gut! If they look dodgy, don’t hesitate to contact a different company for your answers.
Time to Grow
If one or all of these signs strike a chord, it’s time to tag in the experts and watch your SEO grow.
Congratulations! You are about to embark on an exciting journey to scale your business and boost profit!
If you have questions about working with professional SEO services and what this might look like for your business, touch base with us to answer these questions and more!
