Nozak Consulting

Why Am I Not Ranking on Page 1?

Scott Emigh

One of the greatest frustrations your new business can face is not ranking on page one in the search results.

After facing all the challenges of starting a business, creating a quality service, and building a beautiful website, you deserve some recognition. Unfortunately, you are not going to get any recognition because no one can find your business website. You are probably wondering: Rank Me On Page 1>>

“Why am I not ranking on page one?”

Many factors can contribute to this problem, but there are several key steps a business can take to rectify this. It will take time, but soon you will rank on page one.

SEO Competitors

In some cases, competitors might dominate the market your business is in. Furthermore, they have the time, money, and resources to have stronger search engine optimization.

As such, they tend to be the ones who appear on the first page of search results. In a situation like this, you might feel like beating these competitors would be impossible.

Fortunately, if you focus your business on a particular market, you will be able to stand up against your competition. For example, maybe you only cater to a certain region, like Tulsa. Focus your keywords on including Tulsa. You will have far fewer competitors and appear higher in the search results if you readjust your strategy.

Content Optimization

Content optimization is important if you want to rank on page one in the search results. One reason businesses appear lower in the search results in the first place is due to poor content optimization.

Whether this is because of lack of keywords or just because the content is not high-quality, both can cause harm to your search engine optimization in different ways. If you optimize your H1 and H2 titles, keywords, and even image file names, you can increase your chances of being noticed by search engine algorithms.

Furthermore, if you make the content more interesting for visitors, more people will share links back to your website. Search engine algorithms take into account how many times a website link is shared to determine its quality and popularity, which in turn causes it to rank higher in search results. 

Short Tail Keywords

A high number of short tail keywords (search phrases comprised of one word), can be detrimental to your ranking. Many other websites use this same method, so your website will not stand out from theirs.

Even if it does, search engine companies created to penalize websites which practice this technique, as most websites using an overabundance of short tail keywords do so through questionable methods.

The simple solution is to use long-tail keywords (search phrases comprised of three words or more). These keywords are easier, more efficient, and more likely to help your website rank higher.

Inbound Links

An inbound link is when an outside source links back to your website. This is a vital part of search engine optimization. Search engine algorithms take into account how many inbound links a website has from other authoritative sources, and how many times a link has been shared on social media.

With this data, it can determine how high up a result should rank. Acquiring inbound links can be a time-consuming process, but one worth doing. By creating good content, adding social media sharing options to your website, and collaborating with other companies in similar fields, you will begin to accrue more inbound links.

From there, you will see how much they impact your website’s traffic, and its search engine rank.

Mobile Friendly Website

These days, browsing the web on a mobile device is a commonplace activity. With the prominence of mobile web browsing, creating a mobile friendly website is imperative. When mobile users go to your website, it should conform to the shape of their device, and should feel natural to scroll through without having to constantly pinch or drag the page.

Webpages unfriendly to mobile devices are penalized and will rank lower in searches on mobile devices. There are several methods to making your website mobile friendly, depending on the circumstances. WordPress users have the advantage of certain plugins and themes which are designed to make WordPress websites mobile friendly. Otherwise, speak with an expert, or try updating or redesigning the website if you are confident in your web design abilities.

While there can be other factors at play, these in particular are what are likely behind your website not ranking on page one. Improve some of these areas, and if you still have difficulties, contact a local SEO company to help you. Now you know what to do, and you can take steps to make it to the top.