Blogging can get frustrating really quickly when the numbers just don’t justify the investment of your time and effort. If you are looking for quick tips on how to rank your blog, read on to find out more.
Some studies show that almost 80% of the times blogs tend to miss their mark. On top of that, it can cost a packet to publish quality guest posts, that includes website expenses, professional content creation, SEO and finally publishing.
Blogs fail more often than they succeed. However, if you identify the reason behind why your blog is lacking in online visibility, chances are that you could turn the tables around. Here are the most common reasons for blogs to not rank well in Google searches.
1. Get your site structure right for SEO
This is one of the most common and overlooked mistakes. Check the URL structure of your blog to identify whether it is subfolder/subdirectory in nature (www.website.com/blog) or subdomain(blog.website.com).
The latter (subdomain) option can seriously make your ranking and traffic volume suffer. Search engines tend to treat entire blogs that run under subdomain as a separate website. This can significantly dilute brand authority.
The problem lies with the typical (and popular) “plug and play” blogging platforms of today, like WordPress and Hubspot. It is easier to simply set up the entire blog on a subdomain, for you and them. However, this convenience has a cost attached to it.
It is not necessary for subdomains to pass link or ranking metrics between one another. They may also not pass on quality and trust factors. However, subfolders always inherit and pass these metrics across the same subdomain.
It is important that you steer clear of subdomains for the best blogging experience and rank metrics.
2. Not enough internal links
You are missing out on some major opportunities if you are not linking to various posts throughout your blog. One of the most easy and powerful strategies to help search engines is to establish an internal linking structure.
Internal linking is one of the most overlooked aspects where optimization is concerned. It is very important to maintain a proper internal structure, since they work towards:
- establishing clear paths for users to navigate your blog
- increasing crawl rate by opening up deep linked web pages
- making search engines aware of your most important web pages
- defining site architecture
- distributing authority or link juice throughout the blog
- helping index linked-to webpages by using the keywords mentioned in hyperlink anchor texts
Internal links are integral to amplifying the benefits of backlinks. If you don’t have 3 – 4 internal links per blog post, then you are missing out on some serious benefits. Also, when writing blog posts please check out our guide on best blog post length.
You also need to build deep links for inaccessible webpages by creating a drop down menu or navigation pane on the home page. It is important to understand that simply posting content does not give automatic access to Google or Bing.
It is best to conduct a thorough link audit and make a record of those pages that have attained maximum authority. You can distribute authority evenly throughout your blog by inserting internal links to other high-value internal posts on these pages.
Make sure you take the importance of sitemap into cognizance as well. You need to ascertain that all URL structures are clean, keywords are optimized, and webpages properly indexed.
Lastly, focus on optimizing anchor text to drive impressions for all linked webpages. You need to use varying phrases as anchor text for each link. This will allow you to rank the same webpage for multiple search queries.
3. Keyword structure is not optimized
Keyword structure still holds importance while building an internal content marketing campaign, even with the rise in machine learning technology and semantic search. Your on-site content should be linked to your overall business objectives by topics and keywords.
It is difficult to identify what users really demand if your content covers the topics, but not the keywords. It is impossible to identify your targeted audience without proper keyword research.
Content that is keyword-optimized tends to rank higher organically and drives impressions for searches. Your blog content can effectively be turned into a lead generator by bridging the gap between user intent and the content.
Your blog may not be ranking if you are not targeting long-tail keyword phrases. This is especially true for informational blogs. Question phrases beginning with how, what, when, where and why are common examples. You should also consider including other actionable phrases, like tips or hacks to improve your visibility.
A rookie mistake most bloggers make in their haste to publish their content is the failure to keyword-optimize the headers, meta tags, and content. Click-through rate can be potentially increased by using specific keyword phrases within the meta description of a specific SERP listing.
Conversely, your blog posts could raise red flags with overly-optimized content. Google and other search engines may label your content as spam if it features high keyword density or keyword stuffing. These practices will also result in poor ranking signals since it will obstruct your content’s readability score.
4. Your blog has duplicate content
Duplicate content is the worst thing that can happen to your blog because it causes both the pages to rank mediocrely, instead of one ranking exceptionally.
Most people don’t realize that the content they have created and published may be the same as that on an unintended duplicate. In such a scenario, your SEO juice will get split between the original and duplicate page.
Ideally, you want the SEO juice of both pages to be combined and not left alone to their devices. Google bot gets confused upon coming across duplicate content. And, when this happens there is a more than likely chance of the search engine ranking the wrong page.
For instance, it might just choose an HTML page meant as a print version. This can prove to be disastrous to your blog. It may happen just because you forgot to clarify it for Google bot.
There are various online tools to identify duplicate content. Make use of them to find duplicate content, and then use the “rel=canonical tag” to let Google know which page to rank and attribute the SEO juice.
Once you are done with individual page canonicals, Google will pick up the SEO juice from all duplicates and concentrate it on the canonical page. This provides your original blog post a far better chance of ranking.
5. You are not promoting your blog on social media
Not leveraging social signals could be one of the reasons for failure to rank. If you haven’t already claimed your blog’s social media property, then it is time to get cracking with account creation. You need to have a social media presence if you want to start promoting your content.
If you are not a business or a brand, but an individual, then it is recommended that you still create separate social media accounts for your blog because that helps determine how your blog ranks in Google.
You need to stay active on social media and keep your information updated if you want to increase your SEO efforts. Google uses social signals to differentiate between the websites that are active and the ones that are stagnant. This is one of the determining factors of search engine ranking.
Staying active on social media does not need to be complicated. It can be as simple as tweeting about the recent article you posted on your blog or uploading an image relevant to the content on Instagram.
Your blog will rank better with the more posts you have. Social signals could be the answer to your SEO efforts if you feel you are doing everything right, but still not getting the results you need.
Social signals also help you get more traffic by increasing promotion opportunities and exposure. You can increase your ranking by getting more traffic to your blog as well. You may do everything right, but without social signals you will lose the SERP spot to your competition that does have active social media profiles.
6. Focus on consistency to rank your blog
You won’t be able to claim a spot in rankings if you are inconsistent in your posts. You could be posting fresh content constantly, but if it is random, then it won’t attain the SEO boost you need.
Maintain a rigid and helpful content marketing calendar and make sure you stick to it. Create content according to the calendar and publish them at regular intervals.
You increase your chances of ranking by creating more content. However, you need to make sure you don’t take a hit on quality over quantity.
Don’t worry if you struggle at the beginning in creating high-value content consistently. You are not alone. 60% online marketers find it challenging to produce engaging content.
However, understand that you will increase your incoming traffic with each piece of content you create and publish. This is an opportunity for you to increase your search engine rankings, which means it is only a matter of time before your rankings get a lift.
7. Your blog is not mobile-responsive
You need to make sure that your blog is mobile-friendly if you want your rankings to improve. You need to cater to all the different screen sizes and devices that people use to browse the internet.
There is a very low chance that Google would consider it rank-worthy if your blog is not device flexible. You can find out if your blog is mobile-friendly or not by using free online tools.
Google puts a lot of weight on this factor since 20% people only use smartphones for browsing, while 80% prefer using it. You are unnecessarily making things difficult for yourself by not making your blog mobile-friendly.
You need to care about what Google cares about. The good news is that it is easy to make your blog mobile-friendly. You can do it by selecting a WordPress theme that is device-flexible and fits your needs.
8. Your blog is slow to load
There is nothing worse than clicking on a result and then waiting 10 seconds for it to load. People want information, and they want it under 3 seconds. This is one of the reasons why Google puts significant ranking weight on page load time.
There are two ways a site’s load time directly affects its rankings. The first is pretty straight-forward. Google ranks those websites high that have faster load times to improve user experience. People don’t want to wait, and Google understands that.
The second reason is a little indirect. Slow load time causes people to hit the back button thinking there is something wrong. This can increase your bounce rate, which in turn harms your rankings. This is even more important as more customers switch to online purchasing through covid.
Make sure you check the loading speed of your blog using one of a variety of online tools. You need to know how fast your website is and how well it is optimized for speed. If your optimization is low then there are steps you can take to increase the website speed.
For instance, just by simplifying the page design or compressing images, you can reduce the page load time. There is no denying the fact that your website will rank higher when it loads faster.
9. Google has just not indexed it
Sometimes, all it takes is patience to see your blog climb in rank. However, it is possible for you to get curious and type in your target keywords or business name into the search engine. Don’t panic if you don’t see your blog getting listed immediately.
It is harmlessly possible that Google has just not gotten around to indexing it yet. Give your new page some time before you search for it on search engines.
But, do check that you haven’t accidentally blocked Google from crawling your blog. You will need to undo those changes and make sure that Google has access to your blog at all times.
You can request Google to crawl your website at the earliest by typing in your website address in Google Search Console. You will be intimated immediately if there are any crawl errors. Next step is to click the “Fetch” button and then click on “Request Indexing”. You will see a page where you can finalize the request.
This will get Google’s robot to crawl your blog as soon as possible. This is important because you have absolutely no chance of ranking if Google cannot crawl your blog and analyze it.