Is your business growing slower than you’d like online?
Welcome to the club. Most companies experience this at some point in their marketing efforts. You work hard … write blogs … post on social media … but your traffic just doesn’t budge.
Here’s why:
The number one reason why websites experience slow growth online is one thing – hidden issues that Google dislikes. The solution? A comprehensive content SEO audit.
This article guides you through step by step on how to identify the problem areas that are holding you back and eliminate them starting today.
Let’s dive in!
Here’s what you’ll discover:
- Why Businesses Struggle With Slow Online Growth
- What A Content SEO Audit Actually Does
- 5 Practical Steps To Run Your Own Audit
- Common Issues That Kill Growth
- When To Bring In The Experts
Why Businesses Struggle With Slow Online Growth?
There’s a hard truth most business owners don’t want to hear…
Slow growth online isn’t usually luck. Usually it’s caused by problems that can be identified and remedied. Did you know that 21% of small businesses identify low traffic as their biggest struggle? That’s 1 in 5 business owners right where you are.
And considering 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine… If you can’t be found there, you’re invisible to most of your audience.
The good news? Most can be diagnosed by performing a thorough content SEO audit. Performing an organic visibility audit is the most logical first step before spending another penny on link building, paid advertising, or content creation. Why? The problems need to be identified before they can be fixed.
Without a clear picture… it’s all just guessing.
And guessing is expensive.
What A Content SEO Audit Actually Does?
A content SEO audit involves going through everything on your website. You look at your content, website structure, and technical elements.
The goal is simple:
Find the issues stopping Google from ranking your pages… and fix them.
Here’s what a good content SEO audit looks at:
- Content quality: Is your content valuable, fresh and well-structured?
- Technical setup: Can Google crawl and index your pages properly?
- Keyword targeting: Are you targeting the right search terms?
- User experience: Is your site fast, mobile-friendly and easy to use?
- Internal linking: Are pages connected so Google can understand them?
You have a good idea about what works and what doesn’t when you look at all five areas.
Take inventory of what’s already working on your site.
Note: Most skip this step. They want to get started with link building or paid ads right away. Don’t follow their example.
5 Practical Steps To Run Your Own Audit
Want to roll up your sleeves? Here are your 5 steps for this week.
Step 1 — Check Your Indexing
Open Google Search Console and look at the Pages report.
How many pages are actually indexed? If lots are missing… Google can’t rank them.
Common reasons pages don’t get indexed:
- “Noindex” tags accidentally added
- Robots.txt blocks
- Duplicate content issues
- Low-quality thin pages
Fix indexing issues first. There’s no point ranking pages Google hasn’t indexed yet.
Step 2 — Review Your Top Content
Pull up your top 10 pages by traffic. Then ask:
- Is the content still accurate?
- Is it long enough to compete?
- Does it answer the searcher’s question?
Stale content is one of the primary offenders when it comes to sluggish growth. Refreshing your highest authority pages won’t require you to write new content but will help gain traffic quickly.
Step 3 — Test Your Site Speed
Site speed is MORE important than ever. Studies have found that 53% of mobile users will abandon a website that doesn’t load in under 3 seconds.
Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights. If you score lower than a 70… Implement these quick fixes:
- Compress your images
- Remove unused plugins
- Use a caching plugin
- Switch to better hosting
Site speed is a ranking factor but more importantly it is a conversion factor. Sites that load faster convert better.
Step 4 — Check Your Keyword Targeting
Are you targeting the right keywords?
The majority of businesses target keywords that are too competitive or too irrelevant. Performing a good content SEO audit includes:
- Which keywords each page is targeting
- Whether those keywords have real search volume
- If the keyword matches what users actually want
Fixes can be as small as correcting the title tag or H1. Occasionally the entire page needs a rewrite.
Step 5 — Audit Your Backlink Profile
Backlinks are still one of Google’s top ranking factors. Look at:
- How many backlinks point at your site
- The quality of those links
- Whether competitors have more (or better) links
When competitors are out-linking you on links… this is one reason why you’re not growing fast enough. Links gap must be closed.
Common Issues That Kill Growth
Here’s what shows up again and again when auditing struggling sites:
Thin content: Pages with fewer words trying to rank against pages with many words. It will never happen.
Duplicate content: Having more than one page that targets the same keyword phrase. Google becomes confused and ranks them both poorly.
Bad internal linking: Valuable pages buried 4 clicks deep with zero internal links leading to them.
Slow mobile site speed: 63% of traffic comes from mobile web, so if your mobile site isn’t fast and functional, your rankings will suffer.
Sites which haven’t published for months eventually decay in rank.
When performing a content SEO audit, correct these problems promptly if they occur. Chances are they are your biggest roadblocks.
When To Bring In The Experts?
Look… not everyone has the time or skills to run a full audit.
And that’s totally OK.
If you’ve tried the above steps and haven’t seen any growth, it may be time to hire an SEO expert. Look for an agency that can:
- Find issues that get missed
- Give you a clear roadmap to follow
- Save months of guessing
All they need to do is provide you with a detailed report that shows what they plan to repair and why they will make those repairs. Stay away from anyone that claims they will give you “guaranteed rankings”. Big red flag.
The Bottom Line
Slow online growth is fixable. Most of the time…
It’s staring right at you on the site. Find the problem. A good content SEO audit will point you in the right direction to begin improving. Recap:
- Run a full audit before spending on link building or ads
- Check your indexing, content, speed, keywords and backlinks
- Fix the common issues that kill growth
- Bring in help if you’ve hit a wall
Companies that succeed online aren’t magical. They are just willing to face facts, identify issues, and improve them.
Time to start auditing.
