SEO in 2021: 5 reasons why your website won’t rank

You’ve got a site (and you think it’s pretty great). You’ve poured your heart and soul into it and yet, it still gets no clicks?

The short answer is: your SEO could probably use some help. Unfortunately, ranking (and ranking well) on Google is often easier said than done.

With only ten results showing on the first page of Google (and 75% of people never scrolling past the first page of search results), you really can’t afford for your site to be sitting on the second, third, or even fourth page of results.

So, why won’t your website rank? Here are five common reasons why your organic rankings may be slipping:

1. Content is unoptimised and stale

Over the past few years, Google’s algorithm updates have focused on websites with high-quality content. If you haven’t been keeping up with your keywords, or the copy on your site is badly written – or out-of-date – then your rankings will plummet. Make sure to keep updating your site regularly with informative content – Google will reward your efforts!

2. The site has duplicate content

Duplicate content used to be a nail in your site’s coffin. While its importance has waned in recent years, it still matters. Google will penalise your website if you’ve lifted copy from other areas of the site (or worse – the internet). Once the site has been hit with a dupe content penalty, your rankings will suffer.

2. The site has duplicate content

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3. Navigating your site isn’t easy – for the spiders

If your site’s internal linking structure isn’t in order, Google’s (and other search engines’) spiders will struggle to crawl it properly. Even if your site is awesome, and packed full of quality content – a poor internal linking structure could spell disaster for your rankings. So, don’t gloss over your sitemap – it’s an essential part of your site’s SEO strategy.

4. Page speed suffers (and so will you)

As Ben mentioned in his blog, your site’s loading speed is a big deal. And, 53% of mobile users will abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. Understandably, Google places a lot of value on how long it takes for your website to load – it will rank a fast-loading site better than slow ones. Plus, a slow-loading website will have a higher bounce rate – which will only hurt your rankings more. It’s a battle you won’t win – trust us.

5. Backlinks & the Google Link Spam Algorithm Update

As of writing, Google is currently implementing the latest version of its latest “Link Spam Update”. AKA: its algorithms are being updated to make them better at detecting (and destroying) spam. So, if you’re guilty of not qualifying your links properly – this is bad news. Remember: tag your affiliate, sponsored, and guest links correctly, and Google won’t have to get involved. Simple.

Final thoughts

You are only one site, in a sea of search results – but that doesn’t mean you should be happy about ranking on page 10 (nobody wants you to rank on page 10). If anything I’ve mentioned above sounds a bit too familiar for your site, then don’t panic – it’s never too late to start practising good SEO techniques!