6 Reasons You Still Aren’t Ranking: The Cold, Hard Truth
Articles,  Blog

6 Reasons You Still Aren’t Ranking: The Cold, Hard Truth

September 15, 2019


– Question for you: how long
have you been doing SEO? Let me know, leave a comment. Because, you know what,
most people tell me, “Oh, it’s too hard to rank. “I’m not getting results,
the algorithms are changing, “it was easier five years ago.” Everyone’s making these excuses. You know, when people tell me they can’t rank, and
that’s why I want to know how long have you been doing SEO for, and if you’re getting rankings. When people tell me they’ve been doing SEO for six months and a year and they’re not getting results, the algorithms, sure they’ve changed. That doesn’t mean you
can’t get more traffic. I’m getting more search traffic now with these harder algorithms than I was before, when
the algorithms were easy. Hey, everyone, I’m Neil Patel, and today, I’m going to break down six reasons you’re still not ranking. Pretty much, I’m going to break
down the cold, hard truth. (upbeat music) Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel. That way, when I release
more content like this, you’ll get notified. And, if you’re on YouTube,
click the alert notification. The first reason you’re not doing well when it comes to your search rankings is you’re not consistent. Let me tell you a quick story. My old blog, I no longer
own it, Quick Sprout, I used to publish an
article every single week. One day, I was just like,
I’m tired of blogging. I’m going to stop for a month. Not only did my traffic dip for 30%, it took me more than three
months to recover that traffic. In other words, if you’re not consistent, you’re not going to continually do well. You need to keep creating more content, creating more tools, continue participating on the social web. SEO’s no longer a thing
of “set it and forget it”. Sure, five, six years ago,
it wasn’t as competitive, but now it is. So, if you continually
do it, you can do well. Even though the algorithms are harder, most people are lazy and they give up. If you’re consistent, you
can beat a lot of people. And if you are getting traction, don’t make the mistake I did
and you stop for a while, because you’ll notice that your traffic will slowly start going down
and it’s hard to recover. The second reason is you’re
tactical and not strategic. Stop looking for the next
trick or the next gimmick. Focus on the fundamentals,
the core strategy. Find topics that people are
really searching for on Google. You can use Ubersuggest for this. You type in a keyword, it’ll show you all the other popular terms. It’ll even have a Content Ideas report that shows you what blog posts are popular and which ones aren’t. See which of them are
competitive in your niche, which ones aren’t, right? In Ubersuggest, it shows you how hard these terms are to rank
for and which ones aren’t, and it’ll even show you the
content that you can write to rank for those non-competitive terms that still get good traffic. Then, you want to
consistently write content around those topics. Then, you want to see
who shares that content and go hit them up and ask
them to share your content. And Ubersuggest shows you who links to every one of your competitors for free. And that’s why you should
be hitting them up. Its not hard, you don’t
have to pay for these tools. There’s no excuses. Then, you want to internal
link your content together. That way, if one person
reads one piece of content and it’s related to
another piece of content you already wrote, it
should be linked together. Whenever it’s relevant
and best for the user, add the internal links. You see what’s working,
you double down on it. You see what’s not working,
you don’t double down on that. The next reason is your content sucks. Once a month, look at
your Google Analytics. Look at the pieces that
are underperforming. Look at the dwell time, this is critical. When you have pieces of
content that aren’t performing, stop writing more of that content. Start looking at what’s
working and write more of it. Again, look at the Content
Ideas report in Ubersuggest. Most people just use it to see what’s hot and they copy that. But what I would recommend is also looking at what’s not popular. Go look at the stuff on
page 10, 20, 30, 50, 100. The stuff that’s not working, that’s the stuff you should avoid writing. Its not important just to
write on stuff that’s working, you need to avoid the stuff that’s not. You also want to use tools like Crazy Egg to see heat maps on your report. How are people interacting
with your content? Where are they dropping off? Where do they scroll until? It’ll tell you in your
writing where you suck. I don’t mean that in a mean way. I mean like, look, I look at my content and see where people drop off. I’m like, Neil, I suck here. I can improve, I can get better. Why, because I want to create
the best experience for you. If you’re writing for search engines, you’re making a mistake. You’re writing for people,
doing what’s best for them, that’s how you get their attention. As they say, eight out of 10
people will read your headline. Only two out of 10 will click
through and read the rest. So, it’s not important to just
write for the search engines. It’s more important to write for humans. Humans are the ones clicking. Search engines eventually
adapt to what humans want. According to Moz, over 20%
of the content that ranks is video-based content. Podcasting makes up a
large portion as well because Google now indexes
and ranks podcasts. Even if you don’t subscribe
to them, they do it for you. So, in your content, your blog posts, you can integrate videos,
audio, images, all this stuff. Don’t just write huge paragraphs. This all helps you with your rankings. The fourth reason that
you don’t do well is you don’t focus enough on building links. And when you build links, you’re building the wrong kind of links. Everyone’s focusing on quantity. It’s not about quantity, it’s not about building more
backlinks to your competitors. There’s a site and this
site’s called Penny Hoarder, and they have less links than
a lot of their competitors, but yet, they do way better. Why, their content’s better in quality, their lead quality is way better, they’re focusing in getting links from the right sites. It’s not about the number,
it’s about the quality. So, look at those links
to your competitors that have quality sites. These are articles that drive traffic. The Ubersuggest Backlinks
report will show you this. Then, from there, you can hit up the sites that are really authoritative and ask them to link to your content because it’s better than your competition. You didn’t just write the
same old boring blog post. You have images, videos,
infographics in your blog post. That’s what makes you better, right? And, after you do that, you continually hammer these sites and build links. Even if you email 100 people and you only get 10 links
or five links, that’s okay. You do that once a week,
you’ll pick up a lot of links. Yeah, it takes time, but it works. And don’t use spammy, shady
tactics that are short-run. Long and steady wins the race. The fifth reason, you’re choosing a space that is too competitive. Narrow down, pick a niche. Everyone wants to rank
for loans or online casino or CBD or weight loss tips. The problem is, a lot of these spaces are already established. Sure, you can eventually get into them. You can pick a niche within loans, such as small business loans or personal loans for
people who have bad credit. You can pick a niche within CBD’s, such as weight loss or
using CBD for weight loss. I don’t know what CBD is all
used for, the benefits for it, but you guys get the point. When you do that, eventually,
as you get more popular, you can then expand into the main niche category of CBD or loans. You have to work your way up. That’s so much better than picking a niche that is competitive, and that’s why you need that sub-niche. And, if you’re not sure of what it is, you can use Ubersuggest again. Type in your niche, it’ll show you all the popular keywords that are related. Some of them are sub-niches. And that’s how I would pick my sub-niche. because you will have
traffic and CPC data. Usually, if the
cost-per-click data is higher, that means that keyword’s more valuable. If it’s lower, it’s less valuable. The sixth reason, you’re
thinking of keywords. You’re not thinking about
readers or real people. When you do a Google
search, what are you doing? You’re trying to find a
solution to your problem. You just don’t type something into Google for the sake of it. You’re typing because you have a problem, and that’s the key. The key is to always think about people, what are they searching, what
are they really looking for, how can you provide a
solution to their problem? And high-quality content isn’t just putting a bunch of keyword variations. Yeah, sure, you may use
my own tools to do that, but I don’t recommend it. I recommend using my
tools to find keywords because those keywords are
problems as I mentioned, right? And you want to find the solutions. Your content should explain the solutions even if that means you’re not
including the right keywords. But, if you’re explaining to people what really makes sense, you’re helping them achieve their goals. You’re helping them
overcome their problems. You’re giving them
step-by-step instructions. You’re laying it out so
anyone can understand. You’re helping them become
better at what they do. You’re inspiring them by
telling a compelling story. You’re driving them to take action by showing them how they can do it. You’re even entertaining them. That’s how you succeed. If you follow those tips,
you’ll start ranking on Google. You don’t need all the time in the world. You just need to follow those tips. If you need help with your SEO, check out my ad agency Neil Patel Digital. If you enjoyed the video,
like it, comment, share. Thank you for watching.

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