If your website is under performing in Organic search, it’s entirely possible there are fundamental problems that can be diagnosed and rectified. Typical impediments we encounter include duplicate content, lack of keyword targeted content, poor keyword choices, misuse of redirects, and canonicalization. These are distinct from off-site SEO factors that can impact performance such as the quality of links coming into your website from other websites.
Sometimes the issues can be traced back to the original site architecture and other times things went off track over the life of the site through updates that were made. All are usually fixable, but none will fix themselves.
No matter how long things have been askew, it’s essential to not only identify the issues, but to figure out who is going to fix them. In some cases, SEO site problems can translate into rankings penalties from Google, but more often there is just a missed opportunity of not ranking more favorably for certain keywords.
Make tackling the work a priority. In contrast to paid search, where changes can be made and rapid results achieved, SEO is much more gradual. Quite often this manifests in a de-prioritization of SEO to-dos by in-house teams who often have a litany of other responsibilities and who often times don’t understand (or care about) the nuances associated with trying to align with Google’s algorithm.
Be careful not to confuse the types of issues mentioned above with ongoing content creation, link development and social media marketing that are also integral components of successful SEO. These require an enduring commitment of resources to achieve meaningful benefits.
I encourage you to allocate the resources to accomplish these critical tasks, and then move on to new opportunities, like Responsive Design.
