Quite a number of online businesses understand the need to have a properly optimized website in order to help their search engine rankings. Unfortunately, there are times when your SEO tactics may not work, or may even do more harm than good for your site’s rankings. SEO is a lot more than creating great content and placing choice keywords here and there. It has to do with both on-page SEO as well as off-page SEO.

Below, you’ll find some common reasons why an SEO campaign may fail.

Having no goals beforehand

With no goals set, there is no clear direction for the campaign to go. While setting goals, they need to be as realistic as possible. An example of an unrealistic goal is to think that your SEO campaign will yield instant results. Measurable outcomes that MAY be used to measure SEO campaign success include traffic, sales or leads.

Unattractive Website

Having an unprofessional website can greatly hurt your SEO campaign. Not many people will endure coming to a site that is less than professional looking. A site that is not engaging, and appealing will drive a lot of potential customers away.

Choosing the wrong keywords

There is nothing as irritating in SEO as optimizing for the wrong keywords and realizing so later. When you fail to optimize your website for the right keywords then you end up getting wrong traffic. If you experience a lot of bounce rate from organic traffic to your site then you need to question the keywords you are using.

It is important to find the most appropriate keywords to use and proceed to verify the same with real data so that you don’t end up with the wrong keywords. You can make use of a keywords research tool such as Google Keyword Planner to help you find the right keywords for your given business, niche or brand.

Broken Links

If visitors visit your website, just to find a wide range of broken links, this not only kills the user-experience, but limits the passing of link juice throughout your website. It is important to check that your links are working as they should and that you have few error messages whenever your link is clicked. It’s also good practice to ensure that your site is also linking only to sites that are relevant and related to your site.

Creating Random Content

Whenever you create content for visitors to your site, you need to ensure that it is as relevant and useful as possible. Take a look at your target audience and proceed to create a steady stream of valuable content that will keep them coming back for more!

Hiring The Wrong SEO Agency

Hiring the wrong agency can harm your website in the wrong run. There are agencies out there that practice unethical SEO practices which allow them to make a quick buck and many of them may provide you with a wide range of guarantees and promises.  However, many of the practice they use can in fact do more harm to your site in the long run.

At the end of the day, you need to set realistic goals, have a reasonable budget and give yourself a realistic time-frame in which to see the results of your SEO campaign. You also need to pay close attention to the content you provide and the websites that you link to so that you provide users with a great experience which will ultimately turn into multiple sales.