SEO often seems mystifying to business owners and web admins alike. You’ve put time and money into your website, so why isn’t it ranking higher?
Chances are your site is exhibiting one or more common SEO issues holding it back. But identifying the root causes and solutions can be challenging without the right guidance.
This comprehensive article will explore the six most prevalent SEO pitfalls – from Google updates to page speed – and actionable ways to address each one. Follow this advice to get your website’s SEO back on track.
SEO Issue #1️⃣ Surging Keyword Competition
Intense competition for your target keywords can push your site’s rankings down, resulting in lower visibility and traffic from organic search.
🔎 How to diagnose:
- Check keyword difficulty and volume in tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs. Watch for surging competition.
- Notice drops in organic traffic and lander pages’ rankings, especially for core keywords.
- Review Google results to see new competitors now outranking your pages.
⚙️How to fix it:
- Expand your keyword scope. Target additional long-tail variations and synonyms to broaden reach.
- Strengthen pages targeting now-competitive terms. Increase word count, amplify page speed, earn backlinks, and leverage multimedia.
- Shift some focus to lower-competition keywords. Target less contested terms to fill gaps from high-competition keywords.
- Monitor competitor content. Stay on top of competitors’ strategies to identify new opportunities.
With the right keyword research and content optimization, you can overcome rising competition to maintain and expand organic reach.
SEO Issue #2️⃣ Google Algorithm Updates
Google algorithms organize the world’s information – but updates to their ranking factors can significantly shuffle search results, sometimes against your favor.
🔎How to diagnose SEO issues from an update:
- Notice an abrupt rise or fall in organic traffic and rankings, especially for historically strong pages.
- Review Google’s posted announcements about recent core updates.
- See unexplained ranking volatility across pages and keywords.
⚙️How to fix it to respond to algorithm changes:
- Closely analyze your new rankings to identify content themes and techniques of sites now outperforming you. Reverse engineer what is resonating with the updated algorithm.
- Check your site for flags like thin content, shady backlinks, or other violations of Google’s core webmaster guidelines. Clean up anything risky.
- Monitor Google’s statements and trusted SEO authorities for guidance on adapting to updates. Focus on creating high-quality, useful content.
- Avoid overoptimizing just for Google. Write genuinely helpful content tailored for your audience. Build authority, trust, and engagement through expertise – not tricks.
Google’s black-box algorithms continually evolve, but thoughtful SEO and content strategies withstand the tests of time.
SEO Issue #3️⃣ Slow Page Load Speeds
With page speed a factor in rankings, slow load times can directly impact your organic search visibility. Users also lose patience waiting for sluggish sites.
🔎How to catch page speed issues:
- Use Google PageSpeed, Pingdom, and WebPageTest to measure load speed. Target sub-3 second times.
- Check real visitor analytics for high exit rates and short sessions.
- Set page speed performance alerts – sudden drops likely indicate new problems.
⚙️How to it to improve poorly performing pages:
- Optimize images using compression, reduced dimensions, and new formats like WebP. Lazy load offscreen images.
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to eliminate unnecessary code bulk.
- Implement browser caching via headers to accelerate repeat page loads.
- Employ a content delivery network (CDN) to serve assets from servers closer to visitors.
- Upgrade web hosting plans if limited resources throttle page load times.
Faster sites engage visitors, improve user experience, and can directly lift organic rankings. Page speed optimizations deserve ongoing attention.
SEO Issue #4️⃣ Limited Local SEO Visibility
For location-based businesses, visibility in local search results is critical – but claiming your spot takes effort.
🔎Signs your local SEO needs work:
- Competitor locations rank higher in local pack and map listings.
- Minimal organic traffic from local search queries.
- Low awareness and foot traffic from nearby customers.
⚙️Ways to boost your local SEO visibility:
- Complete and optimize your Google Business Profile listing with photos, descriptions, services, and accurate business info. This is the foundation.
- Earn local reviews via Google, Facebook, and industry sites. Aim for 30+ positive reviews referencing location.
- List your business on directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor, YellowPages etc. Consistent NAP helps rankings.
- Optimize on-page local signals like business name, address, and phone number.
- Create location-optimized content and pages targeting your region and local search queries.
Owning the digital presence in your geographic area brings tremendous local opportunity. Follow comprehensive local SEO best practices.
SEO Issue #5️⃣ Pages Not Indexing Properly
It’s disheartening to publish amazing content only to find Google hasn’t added it to their index for organic visibility.
🔎Common indexing failure causes:
- Recently moved or changed domains
- Blocked by robots.txt or meta noindex tag
- Server SEO issues blocking Googlebot access
- New site with insufficient crawl budget
⚙️How to fix it to get pages indexed:
- Use Google Search Console to inspect indexing status and submit currently unindexed URLs.
- Check robots.txt and meta settings to ensure Googlebot can access and read pages.
- Expand internal linking to boost page reputation and discovery.
- Create an XML sitemap detailing all pages to be crawled, and submit in Search Console.
- Patience for Googlebot to crawl new sites or migrated domains. Consider temporary paid search ads to bridge gap.
Don’t leave the organic benefits of content on the table. Follow best practices to get all pages indexed in search engines.
SEO Issue #6️⃣ Resource Constraints
Limited budgets and short-staffed teams obstruct many SEO initiatives. But maximizing your resources can still drive results.
🔎How to spot resource gaps hurting SEO:
- No dedicated in-house SEO staff
- Little budget for content, tools, or ads
- Reliance on only free resources
- Leadership unaware of SEO value
⚙️How to fix this despite limited resources:
- Learn SEO fundamentals yourself using free resources like Moz Beginner’s Guide, Google Webmaster Academy, and more. Understanding best practices, even without executing, has value.
- Explore budget-friendly tools like SEMrush’s free plan, Screaming Frog’s free version, or Google’s free suite. Many provide robust capabilities without heavy costs.
- Outsource selectively. Pay for only immediate high-impact needs like specific content improvements. Avoid unnecessary retainers.
- Phase efforts over time based on wins and funds available. Compound gains gradually.
- Educate leadership on SEO through data, expert opinions, and case studies to build buy-in over time.
While ideal scenarios allow unlimited SEO investments, take pride in maximizing every resource available, no matter how modest. Compound small wins over time.
The Path to SEO Success
Hopefully these tips provide a game plan for diagnosing and overcoming the most common SEO pitfalls hampering websites:
- Monitor keywords for rising competition, and expand scope accordingly
- Stay vigilant of Google algorithm updates and focus on quality content
- Continuously optimize page speed using images, caching, CDNs and more
- Build local SEO foundations like Google Business Profile and review generation
- Troubleshoot indexing failures through Search Console and sitemaps
- Stretch budgets further through free learning, tools and phased roadmaps
Rather than feel overwhelmed or discouraged, take SEO challenges in stride using this guide. Consistency compounds results over time.
Need a hand executing on any of these next steps or want a site audit? Don’t hesitate to reach out. Helping local Cyprus businesses unlock their full online potential is my passion. Let’s grow together.
