The marketing and SEO strategy has undergone numerous transformations over time. In the case of businesses that have been present online for a while, the promotion strategy has also experienced many of these changes. From our experience, we have noticed that there are still websites that, from an SEO perspective, are still somewhere in the past, especially since this "past" is not too distant in time but in technologies and updates from search engines. We have encountered many tactics applied to these sites that worked at one point but are no longer valid. Moreover, they can even bring some disadvantages or penalties.
If you want to find out where your company's website stands from this point of view and whether it is time to change direction, you just need to check if any of the following five elements apply in your case.
Keyword stuffing. Although this term may seem a bit exaggerated, an excess of keywords is one of the most harmful elements for a website. Widely used some time ago, this practice is completely outdated and must be abandoned. Now search engines are interested in quality content. And the audience is looking for the same thing.
To avoid penalties and loss of ranking, you need to review all the website content and remove excess keywords, and rewrite the content so that it is as natural and easy to read as possible.
Limited and poor quality content. Related to the previous point, this requirement must be respected by all websites, whether new or old. Duplicate content is not an alternative. Although in the past the presence of the same content on multiple sites was common, now this is completely forbidden. Therefore, you must check that the texts on the site are not found on other sites as well. If they are, they must be quickly modified, as you can be easily penalized. Repeating the same text with minor changes from one page to another on the same site was still a common practice in the past but should be avoided now.
Unpleasant user experience. A website must not only attract attention and bring visitors but must also maintain this interest and, implicitly, keep visitors on its pages. Of particular interest for SEO now are the time spent on the site, bounce rate, and the number of pages viewed.
The visitor must find everything they need on the landing page, the content must flow correctly, and there must be links to other pages, other products, and any elements relevant to visitors.
To fix any current site issues from this perspective, you need to analyze each page, starting with the main page, and observe how easy it is to navigate it or the site from there. To improve it, you should create a very simple menu, a clean page layout, and also introduce the famous call-to-actions, those calls to action (it doesn't have to be an online store for this; it can also be applied to signing up for a newsletter or reading a new article).
Lack of a blog. Yes, either you have a company blog or you don't. It brings numerous advantages, which we have discussed on another occasion.
Read here about The company blog - advantages.
The blog brings important SEO benefits, as well as image and brand benefits. To enjoy it, you must have periodic activity, at least weekly. And if you lack knowledge or talent in writing, you can always turn to specialists, people who do this at a higher level, with low costs.
Lack of a brand. In the sea of companies, businesses, products, ideas, we must somehow stand out. And the brand is exactly that something that makes us come out of anonymity. People look for a product, but they will certainly look for a brand, a name, a symbol that is well defined in their mind and correctly and very solidly associated with certain characteristics and properties. If you don't have a brand, if on the site and online in general you don't try to promote your name, image, then you do not benefit from the advantages offered by notoriety. The site must therefore contain and properly display the brand, and it should not be hidden somewhere in a corner, almost invisible. The brand must be promoted everywhere, from simple emails to partner sites, from headers to announcements or offline flyers.
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Conclusions
These are just a few of the methods through which you can find out the stage your site is at and what you need to change to keep up with changes and trends in the field. A competitor analysis can be at least as good if the study is done correctly and in depth.
