Search engine optimization (SEO) is the elusive condition that helps websites gain visibility online. It’s the process of continuously improving your website ecosystem to appeal to both search engines and your visitors, and also encouraging clicks from the search results page. The SEO game is an enormous and complex one, with rules and strategies that change all the time both in technique and ranking value. Trying to keep up could leave you genuinely frazzled and questioning your very existence.
The good news is that there are Search Engine Optimization specialists out there that live and breathe this stuff. They work exclusively with websites across all markets and verticals—analyzing them, optimizing them, fixing heaps of issues, and helping them run and convert better.
If you’ve been going it alone or relying on your friend that “builds websites”, your site could be lacking when it comes to SEO friendliness across the whole spectrum of strategies. In this article, we’re going to share 5 telltale signs it’s time to graduate from the do-it-yourself approach and hire an SEO expert.
Traffic Feels Light
One of the best signs your website needs some SEO attention is if you’re experiencing low traffic. If people aren’t finding your website organically in search engines like Google, there’s usually a good reason (or 20!).
If you aren’t sure about your traffic numbers, Google Search Console is a great place to start. It’s an absolutely fantastic free tool that allows you to analyze heaps of reports about the search health of your website including your organic clicks, impressions, and the average position of your keywords in Google. To setup Google Search Console, all you need to do is complete a simple verification process to prove you’re the owner (or ask us to give you a hand!). Here’s an example of the web traffic overview chart.
One important issue that could be leaving you with low search traffic is related to your website content. Search engines prefer websites with lots of relevant, helpful content. Plus, creating new content is a sign that you care about your website and visitors and that you’re actively updating your content (another excellent signal to Google). With that in mind you may want to consider a new section of your website for super helpful and informative articles, authentic case studies, an engaging photo gallery, or customer testimonials.
An SEO professional can help you diagnose the problem and determine why your website Google traffic might be suffering. From there, they can work to optimize your site and work with you to create more content and work the 150+ other things that you’ll need to do perfectly to compete in your market or industry. Don’t worry, professional SEO services are delivered in a very intentional and strategic manner, setting realistic goals along the way. SEO is a marathon not a sprint and expecting instant results will only end in disappointment. Instead, think of realistic goals.
You Aren’t Ranking Well
If you aren’t getting much traffic, that’s almost a sure sign that you also aren’t ranking well in search engines like Google. In the world of SEO, ranking refers to a website’s average position in the search engine results page. There are usually 10 ‘organic‘ positions available for websites on the first results page plus an additional (up to) 4 spots at the very top of the list which are reserved for Google Ads listings. You won’t always see ads up there, and sometimes there are just two or three. So, that means you’ll need to rank 10th or better to appear on the Holy Grail of Google pages; page one!
To find out how well your website is ranking for various pages and keywords, Google Search Console is the absolute best, free option out there. Here you’ll be able to see the average position for all searches that earned your site an impression or click, and determine how well individual pages are doing in the rankings.
An SEO expert can help you punch your golden ticket to the 1st page of Google. While nothing is guaranteed, there is usually lots that can be done to help get you there. It all starts with earning more organic traffic. SEO nerds, like the wizards at Caorda, will look at optimizing heaps of SEO signals like existing content, developing new content, improving meta data, and addressing page load speed.
Your Website is Slow
A slow website can be a real downer to its visitors and affects the general user experience. This will for sure affect your rankings and traffic numbers. For years now, internet users have been becoming less and less patient with slow websites, and search engines have taken note. That’s why the average page speed of a 1st page Google result is under 2 seconds!
Google has two great tools for measuring page speed and diagnosing issues related to slower loading times. Core Web Vitals report is found inside Google Search Console, and shows how pages perform based on real world usage data, grouping URL performance into one of three tiers. The report is based on 3 metrics:
- LCP (largest contentful paint): The amount of time it takes to render the largest piece of content on the page – typically an image or video.
- INP (interaction to next paint): Assesses a page’s overall responsiveness to user interactions like clicking.
- CLS (cumulative layout shift): Measures all the unexpecteed layout shifts that occur on a page. The lower number the better here.
The second free, ultra valuable tool is PageSpeed Insights. This analysis reports on page experience on mobile and desktop devices, along with important diagnostic information to improve on individual issues. PageSpeed reports on previously mentioned metrics like LCP, INP and CLS (plus others), and scores pages as ‘Good’, ‘Needs Improvement’ or ‘Poor’.
If you’re getting poor scores for page load speed and user experience, it’s time to hire an SEO expert. They can help you solve issues related to content, third-party scripts, excess code, super mega giant images, bad redirects and server requests, and so much more.
Things are Broken
If you come across broken pieces of content on your website, that’s a major red flag for SEO. This includes menu items that aren’t clickable, images that are missing and appearing as placeholders, links that lead to 404 pages, forms that don’t work, and interactive content areas that aren’t interacting.
For many parts of your website, it will be obvious when something is broken. But other times, broken elements will be hiding in plain sight. That’s why the professionals use website crawlers, which inspect every single nook and cranny of a website and spit out results organized by issue type.
On any websites, there are thousands of little things that could break for a number of reasons. Some items can be fixed easily, but staying on top of everything requires a dedicated effort. Other items are much more technical and require talented website developers to fix. That’s why it’s worthwhile teaming up with a multi-faceted web agency, home to skilled website developers and SEO specialists.
Not Everyone is an SEO Expert
Like almost anything, it can be hard to stay on top of the constantly moving world of SEO and help your website reach its full potential without expertise. Doing-it-yourself may have gotten you to a certain point of progress, but fixing broken pieces and making key optimizations will be out of the question without the skills and experience.
If you’re ready to consider an authentic and professional delivery of SEO services for your website, reach out to Caorda for a quote. We’re a talented, tight-knit group of developers, designers, digital marketers, support staff, and account managers with a knack for creating beautiful websites that rank high in Google and convert your customers.
*As a final note of caution, always beware of offers and claims that seem to be too good to be true. If a supposed SEO expert or company tells you they can ensure your website will rank #1 within a given time frame, it’s a scam. Ranking in Google is never guaranteed.