How to Tell Your SEO Sucks in 5 Seconds

The Marketing Garage
  • Date Published
  • Categories Blog
  • Reading Time 3-Minute Read

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) can be one of the most valuable internet marketing tactics for any business. Many of the websites we see as a Toronto marketing company receive as much as 50% of their site traffic through organic Google searches, yet SEO and its importance for showing up in Google is often downplayed or ignored.

SEO should not be seen as a yes or no situation. SEO should be treated like any other marketing strategy, a site can be partially optimized, it can be optimized for the wrong words, or it could follow no SEO best practices at all. Below is a quick and easy trick for you to tell if your website’s SEO sucks in as little as 5 seconds.

Before we get into the details, let us explain what a title tag is. The title tag is the HTML element that specifies the title of your website. It is an accurate and concise description of what your website content is all about.

Now let’s get into  the details of how to tell your SEO sucks:

1. Check The Title Tag For Keywords

Surprisingly, we see websites all the time that exist with just ‘Home’ or ‘Welcome’ as the title tag. This is the first and easiest way to tell if your SEO sucks. When implementing your SEO, there are at least 27 key ranking factors that search engines consider and the title tag is ranked at the very top of this list. Not only is optimizing the title tag a very important SEO tactic to implement, it is also one of the easiest. So, if this was neglected, chances are, so was everything else.

 What Is A Title Tag And Why Does It Matter?

  • The title tag is seen in your internet browser when you hover over the tab and is what shows up in search result pages
  • If this is not optimized properly it could hurt your credibility and relevancy, ultimately decreasing your chances of conversions and leads from your website.

2. Is The Title Tag Using The Word/Phrase Customers Are Actually Using?

When implementing SEO, finding keywords to describe your business in a way that customers would talk about you is extremely important. For example our company, The Marketing Garage, targets the phrase Toronto Marketing Company vs. Toronto Marketing Firm. This is because through various methods of keyword research, we found that the phrase ‘marketing company’ has a much higher search volume than the phrase ‘marketing firm’. This means that this is how most customers would refer to and search for our business.

Here at The Marketing Garage, we follow a 12 point checklist so we know which words your consumers use, rather than you having to just guess.Next time you question why your website is not getting found, try looking for these simple things that will make a drastic change to your search engine rankings.