Are your SEO efforts a disaster? Here’s how to salvage your SEO performance

Dumpster fires are unlikely to happen to you. Right? You’re right. If your SEO performance sounds like this, it could be a sign that you are in a dumpster fire.

Even the most experienced SEO strategists can fail. It’s not hard to see why it is so frustrating when your competitors are miles ahead of yours and your business isn’t bringing in new customers.

It’s never too late for things to turn around.

What is the best time for a tree to be planted? 20 years ago.

What is the best time to do it? Let’s go!

How to save your SEO strategy from the dumpster fire.

1. Examine and optimize your existing content

In this post, I will talk about content.

Content is the most important component of your overall SEO strategy.

Websites without content are useless.

A website can be viewed without meta descriptions. They can also be viewed without optimized images. But, without content, what are you left with?

This is not a website!

However, if your goal is to improve your SEO strategy by focusing on content first, then where should you begin?

Yes, can optimize all content.

Don’t get too excited about creating new content, especially when you have an entire archive of pages and posts that have fallen into serious SEO trouble.

Google views optimized content the same way as new content. To start, you will need to review your content and see what is good and what isn’t.

A content audit tool such as Semrush is available. Or, if there’s a smaller amount of content, you can check things manually.

It’s more than just choosing what content you like. However, you should be able tell from a glance which topics still have relevance to your website.

To check the SEO performance for each page or post, you can either use Semrush, as I mentioned, or manually with Google Search Console.

I love to use Search Console to check how each URL is doing in terms of impressions versus clicks and click-through rates.

This gives me an idea of the pages that need my attention.

Take, for example.

A page that has received 10,000 views in a 30 day period, but only 100 clicks, will have a CTR only one percent.

To find out the reason for the low CTR, I would go to that page.

It is obvious that the page is being ranked for the keyword due to its high impressions. However, if not many people click, it could be that the page isn’t as relevant for this term.

If this is the case, optimizing the page for search engine optimization could involve creating new content around the keyword and retooling existing content.

Optimizing the content of your website is an important part of your SEO strategy. It involves many things that will help you.

I concentrated on the writing and editing parts of content optimization for this first point.

Now let’s move on to other areas of an SEO strategy. (Things that could still be part in content optimization).

2. All meta tags should be reviewed and updated

The meta tags on your pages play a crucial role in the overall SEO health of your website.

Meta tags can be one of the most overlooked things when you’re working on your website. They are short and simple and there are many of them.

Meta tags can become obsolete as your industry changes and keywords you used to optimize for are no longer relevant.

Meta tags show why SEO is not a one-time thing.

Meta tags can be another element you should look at when going through your content pages in order to increase their CTR.

While a lot of your content could be updated, you should also retool the meta title and description.

The meta information is what users see when they scroll through a SERP.

If the title and description of your product are not compelling enough to attract audiences in the awareness stage, they will continue scrolling.

Rewriting meta tags can include adding a target keyword, changing the call to action or being more concise.

Start with just a few pages, maybe 20-30. Then A/B-test the new titles and descriptions to determine how traffic and CTR changes after you make edits.

This will let you know if the updates you are making are worth it and whether you should keep going with this path.

3. Improve your technical performance

To turn around your entire SEO strategy you need to look at your website holistically.

This means that you should not only focus on the content and keywords, but also how the pages are performing technically.

I am combining issues such as site speed, image compression, mobile responsiveness and CoreWeb Vitals together under the heading of “technical performances.”

These factors are not as creative and open-ended than performing keyword research or optimizing content. However, they still matter.

People drop their trust in your website if they are met with slow pages and a messy mobile interface.

It’s impossible to trust people in a competitive world like ours. There are 100 competitors out there waiting to market to them if you fail to do so.

You might consider hiring someone to fix your website’s code and optimize it for mobile.

Images must be compressed to take up less space, but not lose their quality. Each image should also have optimized alt text.

Optimizing and compressing images is something that you can do by yourself.

Page speed and load times are not always the easiest work for website owners or business owners. However, these are key issues to remember as you try to turn around your SEO strategy.

4. Create new content by creating a resume

Even the most ineffective SEO strategy can be turned around

Google won’t hold you back forever just because your SEO isn’t in top form for the past few years.

Google crawls every so often your website to see if it’s doing anything with it. If it notices that your SEO is improving it can rank some pages higher.

This is where you can create all-new and high-quality content.

Content can refer to a variety of things in 2023, including blog posts and infographics as well as videos and podcasts, webinars and slide presentations.

You should do what is best for your company and industry. You can give your audience whatever media they like.

You must be extremely mindful to make your website useful and comprehensive for everyone in 2023.

We’ve learned a lot from ‘s useful content update. It’s clear that content creation is a must.

No more SEO-centric content to get a ranking for a keyword.

Google now pays more attention to the intent and utility of a piece and rewards web pages that provide useful content (get it?). Higher rankings.

The product review update from 2022 is a great example of what Google is doing these days.

Google has decided to reduce the number of low-quality product reviews and prioritize more expert-level reviews that have actually used the product.

Why? Google wants users to trust content that can help them.

Take the product reviews update along with the helpful content update, and you’ll see why content marketing has become so difficult over the years.

Ranking is not something you can do after reading a 400-word blog article.

If you are working for a client portfolio, you must be an expert or put in the effort to create rich content.

Keep these things in mind when you are creating new content for your site in the name of your SEO strategy.

There are many things you need to know when creating new content.

To ensure that you create what people want to see in search results for a keyword, you need to understand their intent and mine the SERPs.

This is what you can all learn.

This section will help you understand that it takes effort to create new content. To do it right, you have to be willing to work hard.

5. Focus on local reviews if you are local

Local businesses are important to mention here. Do you know that positive Google reviews can make a huge difference in your SEO?

Local businesses must now perform all of the on-page SEO work as anyone else. But what can you do for an ongoing SEO strategy.

This is not keyword-driven SEO content. Your local audience won’t find you that way.

Local audiences can find local businesses by doing local searches and looking at the reviews in the map package.

In reality, 77% of local buyers read online reviews when looking for local businesses.

The trust that the public places in you is affected by your reviews. When others have had positive experiences with your company, they are more likely to visit your site and use it.

Encourage customers to leave positive Google Reviews.

You have a better chance of being at the top of your area’s map pack if you have more reviews and more positive reviews.

More traffic should mean better SEO overall.

6. Create natural backlinks

Last, but not least, let me mention another pillar in Google’s list known ranking factors: natural links.

Links connect everything on the internet.

They are also essential in maintaining the rankings juices flowing to your pages when it comes down to your SEO strategy.

Backlinks from other websites to your website show Google that your site is an authority in your niche market. People want to refer to what you have to offer.

Link building is about creating relationships and making yourself known as a reliable resource for others.

Google will give more trust to your site if it sees that your links are coming from authoritative, relevant websites.

Keep the links from websites that make sense for you.

Quality matters more than quantity.

Create content people want to link to.

Search other websites in your niche for content gaps. Then create content to fill those content gaps and request a link back.

While it takes effort and time, you can earn backlinks that will help your SEO.

Your SEO needs to be given time to turn the corner

Even the largest dumpster fire can be put out if you know what and how to do so

SEO dumpster fires can happen, and I will say it again. Sometimes, we get too invested in things that we don’t believe will work.

Sometimes SEO can get out of control and we let it go for years.

It’s never too late for things to be corrected.

SEO takes time. However, you will see results over time. You will notice a difference in three to six months.

You can completely reinvent your SEO strategy, and you’ll be well on your way to business success.

Kris Jones, the former CEO of digital marketing network Pepperjam and the founder of its affiliate network, is now selling it to eBay Enterprises. Kris Jones founded LSEO.com, a software and SEO company. He has also previously invested in many successful technology companies. Kris is a skilled public speaker. He is also the author of ‘Search-Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing’ which is one of the most popular SEO books. It has been sold close to 100,000 copies.

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