SEO Self-Sabotage?

Bad SEO keeps your business hiding in the rocks.

5 Things your Business is doing Online that is Killing your SEO

With 90% of local customers now searching for goods and services online, it’s vital for your business to be focused on Search Engine Optimization. Without constant work and attention on your SEO, you may start to lose credibility with not only the Search Engines like Google and Bing, but also your local customers. This could spell trouble for your growth and might stifle your ability to find new customers. 

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is essentially a measurement of how recommendable your business is to online customers. When you break it down, Google and other Search Engine sites are nothing more than recommendation platforms. They have customers just like you, and their customers rely on them to give the best options when it comes to questions and searches. 

To make sure they are giving their own clients the best experience, they have to factor in many different attributes regarding the pages and businesses they’re recommending. A wide array of statistics based on website security, reputation, online presence and activity - plus a lot more comes into consideration. Millions of these data points are mapped and analyzed with each search to ensure the search engines know exactly what results they are sending to their customers. 

What can I do to Improve my SEO? 

If you’re serious about boosting your SEO, your best option is hiring an SEO Specialist. They’ve dedicated time to learn exactly how to develop stronger SEO, and exactly what steps should be taken to get there. However this can be expensive, and there are numerous minor changes that you can make yourself that are necessary to maintaining strong SEO without needing to hire anyone. Here are 5 areas you can focus on fixing right away that may already be negatively impacting your SEO.

1. You’re Silent on Social Media

Social Media has become the new frontier of marketing. Youtube and TikTok are #2 and #5 on the list of most popular Search Engines in the world. These coupled with powerful social platforms like Facebook and Instagram make up an entire customer segment that you need to be accounting for. This is also something that the big search engines are taking into consideration.

Google and the others understand the importance of Social Media to the modern consumer. Taking time to interact with your customers and offering them connections on platforms that are important to them is a signal to these search engines that you care enough about your customer to put in this effort. Having a presence on social media that is directly related and linked to your website is another assurance that search engines will need to start recommending your business. 

Focus on building your presence on these platforms. Each platform is important for different aspects of your business. Make sure to learn how each is impactful to you and use them as tools to grow your online authority. It’s easy to let Social Media go by the wayside, and easier yet to convince yourself that the effort isn’t necessary. This line of thinking is surely impacting your SEO, and is one of the easiest issues to remedy. 

2. You’re Missing out on Reviews

One of the easiest ways for you to miss out on new online customers is not having reviews. Not only do customers trust reviews more than personal recommendations, they also rely on them to understand what businesses are like and how they treat their clients. That is why Search Engines place so much emphasis on recommending the businesses with the best reviews. 

When they can couple their data analysis with real reviews from your customers, they have an extra layer of assurance. Without reviews, even a brand new top of the line website is going to have problems showing up - they’re that essential. This is why it can be hard for new businesses to see good results online, even when advertising. 

The best thing you can do today is to go through all of your customer lists, and get reviews from all of the jobs you can. As soon as a review comes in, make sure you respond to it. Even if it’s negative, it’s important for Search Engines to know that you are taking consideration of the feedback you’re receiving. This is a critical step in growing your SEO. 

3. You have Incorrect Names, Addresses and Phone Numbers

This could be the most commonly overlooked issue businesses face without analysis from an SEO Expert. Getting a new phone number or address as a business is common. When businesses change their location or even name, this information doesn’t magically update across the internet. Many local service websites like Thumbtack and Angie have created pages with your original business info for their customers. When it changes, these sites and listings have no way of knowing about your new updates. Even sites you've never registered with can potentially create a listing if you already exist amongst the other directories.

There could be sites with your old phone number, address or business name out there and you don’t even know it. And this is a big problem for Search Engines. Imagine if you tried to give your friend a reference to your doctor, but had 3 addresses, 2 phone numbers and multiple names. Obviously your friend would think you are insane to recommend someone you don’t even have the correct information for. The same goes for your business online. 

If you have ever changed your phone number, address or business name, be sure to search the old ones and make sure there aren’t any lingering pages with incorrect information. Your SEO will thank you. 

4. You’re Missing Blogs

Blogs may seem unnecessary for your business, but in terms of SEO they couldn’t be more important. There is a reason that Google introduced the ‘Quick Snippet’ feature that you’ve no doubt seen as you’ve searched. When the answer to your question is highlighted for you as an excerpt from a page, that is a Quick Snippet. Google looks for these to help quickly answer their customers' questions. 

Without Blogs that address some of your customers main concerns or common questions, you’re destroying any ability for your business to show up as this quick solution. Many times, a customer is not always going to search I need a Plumber, but often it starts with Why is my toilet making this strange noise when I flush? Capitalizing on this initial search by having a blog that is dedicated to a possible solution is your fastest way to secure this customer - that might not even know they need you yet! 

You can write simple blogs about your customers' most common problems and what you do to help them. These blogs are going to help your chances tremendously by proving to Search Engines you know exactly how to solve their customers problems. 

5. You’re Neglecting your Website

Websites are the waiting room for your brand new customers. It’s the first sight they see when deciding if you’re the right business for them or not. When put that way, what is your site saying about you? More importantly, what is it saying to Google and the other major search engines? 

If a website isn’t up to date, fully secure or fully functional, it’s telling the search engines to stay away. A responsive website is now so integral to a proper customer experience that Google and others take this into account before sending their clients recommendations. Without security, functionality and accessibility, your business will have a hard time even showing up for customers to see it. 

You have a website for a reason, and to not take full advantage of getting it in front of customers is a waste of potential growth for your business. It may take some investment if you’re not savvy with building websites, but in the end you’ll find that it’s worth it - and necessary. 

With these steps in mind, there is no doubt that you have the ability to boost your own SEO today. Take time to cover all of these bases, and make sure that none of these simple mistakes are killing your online growth.