Why Is My Website Ranking Poorly?

With so much talk online and offline about the importance of SEO and making sure your website is easy to find through search engines, you could be forgiven for spending your days scrolling through articles and blogs looking for the answer to a high-ranking website.

Well, we’re here to break the barriers of miscommunication and provide you with the information you need to use SEO and Google ranking effectively - and it all starts with a myth buster.

Websites don’t rank highly or poorly. Web PAGES do. Let’s take a closer look.

How Does Google & Search Engine Ranking Work?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, focussing on how to use copy and different tools and functions to show Google and other search engines exactly what you do and how you provide value to customers. But have you ever considered how it’s the individual web pages that you optimise, rather than your website as a whole?

The fact is, Google indexes and ranks your web pages as entirely independent destinations. If a user searches for information about one of your core services, you want them to be directed straight to the relevant service page - and that’s how SEO works.

A user searches, you join the dots by bidding on and utilising their key search terms in your SEO strategy, and Google rewards your efforts by giving that webpage a boost in response to certain searches.

Simple, right?

Why Your Web Pages May Be Ranking Poorly..

SEO is a complex thing to get your head around - and Google’s many algorithms can be even worse. When your keywords don’t tick all the right boxes, and if the user experience doesn’t match the high standards expected by Google, your web pages can be pushed down in the ranking. Here are a few things to look out for:

• Your website doesn’t exist on Google ranking - well or poorly! This could be a sign that you’ve got crawling issues on your site, which basically means that Google cannot visit, crawl through or store your site in its ranking. If this is the case, using your Google Search Console tool can uncover the pages which Google struggled with on your site - letting you know where there are errors and isolating the problem to certain web pages. From there, your website developer can do a deep dive into those pages and find out what’s stopping Google from accessing them.
• Your site has to be mobile friendly if you want to be ranked highly by Google. Google operates on a mobile-first basis, and if you’re not abiding by the rules of mobile optimisation then you have no hope of ranking well for any search terms.
• Look out for signs that you’re not passing Google’s Core Web Vitals checklist. This list, published and brought to fruition in 2020, puts more pressure than ever before on the user experience of your site - looking at the stability and presentation of the site, how responsive it is and how quickly it loads for users. Falling down on any of these touchpoints can hurt ranking, so be sure to check out the full list and ensure that you are satisfying all of Google’s demands.
• Check your keywords regularly to ensure that they are still relevant. Customer searches change, as do customer preferences and customer demands. Knowing your target audience and looking at what they search for is key to staying ahead of the curve and ensuring that you don’t fall behind with your SEO strategy.

TOP TIP: Look at the keywords that your competitors are using and bidding on and consider how these might factor into and link you up with your ideal customer.

• Review your page titles and descriptions as well as the copy itself, and make sure that everything delivers a consistent and cohesive SEO strategy. Page descriptions and titles are as important to Google as the content itself, and when all of these different touchpoints don’t align, you can see your ranking success hit hard. Each individual page needs to have an accurate title and description which outlines exactly what it is about and what value it can offer to customers and users, ideally containing the best keywords as well.
• Ensure you have the right security certificates attached to your website. Google values security and compliance and will penalise you if it thinks that any data entered into your website by users will not be adequately protected. One of the best ways of checking this is to make sure you have an SSL certificate at the start of your website’s URL - indicated by the https:// at the start of the URL.

What To Do Next

The best thing to do, especially if you tick all of the above boxes and think that your website is as secure and effective as it can possibly be, is to be patient and have some faith that your strategy will eventually pay off. SEO is a long game, often without quick wins, and it can take time for the individual web pages of your site to be indexed and ranked effectively by Google.

Our advice is to avoid too many regular changes to your website structure, cut down unnecessary webpages and duplicate content so that your website is clear and concise in its delivery of value, and stay on top of keyword trends in your industry and across your target customer base.

For more advice and support on how to optimise your website and individual web pages for higher ranking, get in touch.