In the digital world, landing on the coveted top spot on all search engine results pages, especially Google, could significantly improve the exposure of your e-commerce websites, establishing your authority in this lucrative industry and delivering the kind of ROI that you have been wanting.
But why isn’t your site ranking at the first few pages of SERPs yet?
This is, in fact, the million-dollar question many have been asking themselves at some point or another. Unfortunately, there is no single million-dollar answer.
There are a number of contributing factors why your site isn’t landing the top spot in SERPs. So if you felt you’ve done everything you could for your site yet you’re still at the bottom of the list, then you might want to consider these possibilities.
SEO Takes Time
Yes, you’ve read that right! And there is no other way around. There is no magic bullet to propel you to the top.
“SEO is not an overnight process.”
When it comes to SEO, you definitely need barrels of barrels of patience. It doesn’t matter if you have built millions of millions of links if they all lead back to a website that is not able to convert traffic.
Researching, creating and implementing a strategy and producing content all takes time, and things need to be done in proper order. Then, it even take a longer time before Google, for example, realises you have made changes in your site.
You will then have to wait until search engines have determined that your e-commerce websites are providing brand new value. Generally, it takes approximately 4 months to one year before implement improvements and then you begin seeing actual results.
The bottom line: SEO takes time and requires patience, an extreme amount!
Your Site’s Beauty Is Skin Deep
You’ve spent a great deal of time and money and other resources to ensure you have a well-designed site. Everything looks spectacular. In fact, you can’t get enough of it, and you visit it on a daily basis just so you could marvel at what you have accomplished.
But why is Google not seeing how beautiful and well-designed your site is? It could be that the design of your site looks great yet didn’t account for every single SEO angle.
The following factors could be holding your site back:
- Old, stale content
- Duplicate content
- Insufficient content
- Cluttered navigation
- Incomplete basics, like alt tags, metas and schema mark-up
- No blogs
- Split keyword focus
Google May Have Re-assigned You to the Penalty Box
Your site could be completely removed from Google’s SERPs if you received a Manual Action penalty. If you’ve ranked well previously and then suddenly your ranking significantly dropped, then Google must have placed you in the penalty box.
Now, how do you bail yourself out? You can resolve this by checking the Manual Actions Report. Then, start correcting issues Googled punished you for.
If you’re one of the sites who received these reports, it only means a Google reviewer (a human) found that your site is no longer compliant with the guidelines set by Google.
Now, what could cause such report? The following are factors to be penalised by Google’s reviewer:
- User-generated spam
- Spammy free hosts
- Hacked website
- Spammy structured markup
- Unnatural links coming from the site
- Unnatural links going to your site
- Contents with little to no added value
- Sneaky or cloaking redirects
- Spam
- Keyword stuffing and hidden text
- Cloaked images
Your Keyword Does Not Mean What It Should
Your keyword could me something else to Google. For example, you’ve been doing good SEO to rank a certain page for a particular SEO. However, the page doesn’t seem to catch a break.
The culprit could be that the keyword you are trying to rank for means something else to you than Google.
Take a good look at the first SERPs of the word you’re trying to rank. Check if the results Google shows you are different from what you want.
You Treat Your Site Like It Exists in a Vacuum
SEO isn’t the only factor that affects your site’s ranking. Don’t forget that it has not-so-distant cousins, like social media, PPC, content marketing and many more. In fact, today’s online marketing is more than a holistic approach.
Elements such as the number of clickthroughs, time on site, number of mentions on the web, and social media engagement all figure into the site’s overall ranking. Note that some of these indirectly affect the ranking of your site than others, but all of them play a significant role.
One thing you could do is to build a community on social media platforms and interact with them. This could potentially lead people to visit your site, read your blogs and other content and also click your links.
Small Changes Go a Long Way
You could be thinking there are tons of things to do to grab the coveted top rank on Google’s SERPs. And yes, that’s right.
All the more reason to jumpstart on making minute changes for your e-commerce websites. Small steps will still bring you from point A to point B.
Don’t worry if you’re still not ranking just yet. Give it a little more time, before you finally decide you need a serious overhaul.
Either way, what you need to do is examine the current situation of your site. Start small. Begin with small changes you can manage.
Remember that SEO doesn’t exist in a mere vacuum.