11 Crazy Reasons Why You Fail To Rank Higher In Google

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Would you like to know how to rank higher in Google?  You have probably seen some ridiculous claims when it comes to improving your Google search ranking.

Maybe you have tried it all before but it seems that your website will not budge or you just appear to be stuck on page 4 or 5 forever.

It could be that you are brand new to this crazy world of search engine optimization (SEO) and you find it too technical altogether.

The truth is that in order to get consistent, hands-off traffic to your blog or website you need to depend on an organic source like the Google search engine.

Many bloggers, entrepreneurs and small business owners struggle because they are overthinking the process or they are lacking adequate simple information.

In this post, I am going to give you the 11 crazy reasons why most people fail to rank higher in Google and I will also give you the opportunity to join the Traffic Boost Membership waitlist.

Why is it important to rank higher in Google?

Before I give you those reasons did you know that 3.5 billion searches are made on Google every day? 

Let’s spend some time looking at why is it even important to improve your Google search results in the first place.

The folks at Smart Insights conducted some research across 100 websites in the software as a service space and used tools like Similar Web to pull relevant data.

Here is a graph below of what they found.  As you can see for the vast majority of websites 38.3% of their traffic was direct, 21% came from referrals, 5.2% came from social and 26.6% came from organic search.

Google Search Engine Market Share

Here is a sneak peek of Google search engine market share by country according to Statista. You can see here that Google has 83.3% of search engine traffic in the US.

Here is their share of mobile search engine traffic from 2013 to 2019 thanks again to Statista. Basically, mobile search engine traffic has been on an upward trend for the last 6 years.

Search Engine vs Social Media

In a report by Search Engine Land, it was found that 97% of people still conduct at least one search a day using the search engines.

Also, people still prefer to conduct their search on a regular basis on search engines compared to social media.  See the graph below:

Here is one more graph showing the social media statistics from April 2018 -2019 in the United States with help the Statcounter. Pinterest is another visual search engine and it had about 37% of traffic compared to Facebook’s 47%.

Now that you are totally bored with the statistics let’s spend some time looking at the crazy but simple reasons why most websites fail to rank higher in Google.

Rank Higher In Google

The ability to rank in Google depends on many variables but the majority of those variables relate to the actual content, website or blog. Here are those reasons:

1. Quality of content

This one may sound a little absurd at first but think about it when was the last time you conducted a search in Google and found information that was low quality?

Yet many people continue to write content where the quality of the content is not really good and they wonder why they are not ranking.

It is so important to really spend time thinking about the user before deciding to click that publish button.

Have you given it your best shot and will the user be satisfied when they find your answer to their pertinent question?

Apart from quality content, there is another thing to consider about the content written for the chosen keyword and that is user intent.

2. User Intent

What on earth is user intent?  Well, when someone types a word or phrase into the Google search engine they are expecting a list of results that matches their intent.

For example, if someone types in the phrase ‘onion juice’ they may be expecting to get a definition or description of what onion juice is all about.

However, if they type in ‘make onion juice’ they are now expecting recipes or a piece of content telling them how to make onion juice or even a video.  Does that make sense?

In other words, think about what the user expects to see when they type in your keyword phrase or better yet browse the existing results yourself to see what shows up.

3. Incomplete answers

This one is a little bit tricky but what it means is that you almost need to predict what the user wants to look for before and after your keyword phrase to rank higher in the results.

So, back to the example of ‘onion juice’.  If a user is looking for ‘make onion juice’ it is likely that they already know what are the best uses of onion juice.

Just in case they don’t ensure that you have an article written on that topic.  After they make the onion juice the next best thing they may need to know is how to store it and/or how long it will last.

You almost need to become a mind reader in order to get the best rankings for your blog or website.

4. Website speed

I may have mentioned this in a previous post before but your website speed has a huge effect on your rankings and here’s why.

A slow website has a negative effect on the user experience as well as your bounce rate.  If someone clicks on your page result in the search engine and the site is taking long to load then they click the back button.

Here is an example of my homepage speed on mobile devices.

This is what it looks like from desktop devices.

On the hand, if the sites loads quickly but many of the elements on the site like images and other media fail to load then that also causes a bad experience for the user.

Remember that over 50% of people using search engines are doing so from a mobile device which means they are most likely on the move or outdoors so they need the results quickly.

5. Lack of Keyword Research

One of the keys to getting great rankings in the search engines is by conducting proper keyword research.

This can be a bit tricky because many of the paid keyword tools are super expensive or the free ones are not giving you a comprehensive view of the results.

Here are the results for some of the keyword research I did before writing on this topic.

Rank Higher In Google SERP Results

Keyword research is a comprehensive lesson that I cover in my course so it is not something I will cover in-depth in this paragraph.

However, just know that it is something really important that every blogger, entrepreneur and small business owner needs to learn.

6. Meta tags

Another great one that is part of the on-page SEO process is including all your meta tags and meta descriptions.

Meta tags include the H1 tag in the title which is automatic if you are using WordPress as your blog.

Also, H2, H3, H4 and H5 tags (which are subheadings and lists) should be included within your post as much as possible to improve your chances of getting those coveted rankings.

Your primary and secondary keywords should be sprinkled throughout the content as well.

Finally, it is important to remember to include your meta description so that the search engine spiders will be able to index your content properly.

I strongly suggest that you consider using the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress to make it easy. Also, check out my Yoast SEO tutorial for tips and tricks.

7. User experience

Chances are that you probably have a super-fast website but you still don’t rank higher in Google for your specific keyword.

It is possible that the time on site is low even though you have an okay bounce rate below 95%.

Well, chances are that your content may not be friendly enough for your readers or maybe you have ads or pop-ups everywhere.

The best way to check this is to either ask someone to pretend to be your website user and get their feedback.

Also, ensure that the font is friendly and easy to read as well as the colour scheme is pleasant to the eye.  Ensure that your paragraphs don’t look like a huge wall of text and that the lines are well spaced.

8. Title Is Not Clickable

You may have all have this done but something still seems to be not quite right as no one is clicking on your results.

If you look in Google Search Console and you notice that your chosen keyword is getting tons of impressions but no clicks then it is time to make your title more attractive.

Your meta description can also help to get the click as well if it sells the value of the content to any potential user.  For example, will you click on this result below?

I have highlighted the meta description and the title so you can understand the difference.

9. High bounce rate

Just in case you thought that people visiting your website and clicking the back button straight away does not affect you too much then that is a wrong misconception.

Thanks to Conversionxl we have a few benchmarks of what we can expect when we compare bounce rates by industry.

As you can see bloggers can expect a bounce rate of between 70% and 90% while service sites should be much lower as they sit between 10% and 30%.

Bounce Rate vs Organic Position

On the back of that here is a lovely graph from WordStream via moz.com that gives us a clear insight on how bounce rate affects your organic ranking position.

So, if your bounce rate is higher than normal for your industry then see what you can do to get that resolved as soon as possible.

10. Internal Linking

Now that you have done all of the last 9 points on your blog or website it is super important to remember to link your content internally.

Internal linking does two things.  Firstly, it gives your reader the opportunity to continue staying on your site to read more information which increases their dwell time or time on site.

Secondly, it tells Google or the spiders that this piece of content is important because other content that is already ranking is voting for it.

Another key thing that it does is that it groups all related information together which helps to completely answer a user’s immediate and follow on questions.

11. Insufficient knowledge of Topic Authority

Better knowledge of topic authority can really help you to spot trends in your Google Search Console results.

Topic authority just means that you are ranking not just for one keyword but other related or relevant keywords as well.

Let’s look at the onion juice example again (I really hope I don’t rank for onion juice. Lol). 

If you wrote your article really well about the onion juice recipe you may notice that you rank for a number of keywords closely related to ‘onion juice’.

It just means that Google has recognized you as an authority on the topic of onion juice and started to reward you by ranking your page or post for other keywords that are related.

Take advantage of that and write other related posts or pages.

Topic Authority Examples

Recently, I discovered that I had topic authority for two groups of keywords. Here is what that looked like.

Road Map and Guide

Have you ever wished that there was a simple way, a road map, a guide or someone who will be able to help you to navigate this whole online marketing process?

When I first started down the road of online marketing I wished with all my heart and liver (you can ask it?) that I had someone who with more successful experience can show me the way.

I searched high and low purchased several courses and implemented what I learned but I only had a small degree of success.

It is only in the last few years I found a few great mentors who knew what they were doing and I implemented what they thought and guess what?

Everything came together and because of all the shady experiences I had in the past, I vowed to be that person that I wished existed 10-13 years ago.

I want to help you but the question is are you interested in getting help with your SEO journey?

Maybe you are just happy to read 1,000 free articles online rather than enrol in a course from someone who was in your shoes over 10 years ago.

Traffic Boost Plan – Rank Higher In Google Course

You know what, I will give you the opportunity to prove me wrong. I am planning to launch a course that covers SEO in its simplest form.

I even want to throw in a 30-day quick win to help you get off to a flying start. You are probably thinking that it is not possible to get SEO results in 30 days.

Well, the truth is if you build a great SEO foundation you can achieve what others think is impossible.

Here is a screenshot of a post that I published that got ranked on page one in a matter of hours!! This does not happen to all my content but I just wanted to show you what is possible.

I published it on November 19th and on that very same day it got ranked on page one together with its first click.

If you think that this can be of benefit to you and your business or blog then join the waitlist for this course here.

This course is not for everyone and it is not a cheap course either as I plan to do one to one coaching. It will really benefit those who are serious about wanting to rank higher in Google.

So, if that sounds like you then feel free to join the waitlist here.

Conclusion

SEO is not as difficult as many people make it out to be. In fact, it could be a lot of fun when you build a great foundation.

As a blogger or business owner, you can keep putting it off for many years or you can embrace it with both arms and you would be surprised at the results.

Follow these 11 suggestions and I am sure you would start to see some improvement and you may even begin to rank higher in Google.

Chances are that you may need a more comprehensive road map and guide to take you from where you are right now to where you want to be.

The question is are you willing to take that step and change the way you think about SEO? Are you willing to invest in yourself?

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