5 Steps to Take to Troubleshoot the SEM Strategy for Small Businesses

| Updated on March 22, 2024

The Search Engine Optimization process often involves minor changes to a site that have a noticeable impact on its performance. We all know the essential ingredients of a web page, and search engine optimization is no different. However, you can see a noticeable difference in your site’s performance by implementing changes to your website that are easy to do. So, here are steps from a universal checklist to troubleshoot your SEM strategy.

Monitor Your SEO Efforts

A website that sustains stellar performance on search engines is essential for higher rankings. However, SEO is not a one-time process. Thus, a technical SEO audit is the first and foremost thing to implement on a regular basis.

Regardless of the business stage, be it a new project or an old-timer of the market, you must continue to monitor and refine your SEO efforts. And one can’t do without a good SEO spider, helping you identify the weaknesses of your site, schedule audits, and troubleshoot any issue ASAP.

Yet, here are a couple of other things to keep in mind.

Backlinks are vital to your site’s ranking. Managing them effectively will increase your website’s authority and increase traffic. For example, a website that ranks number one in Google has 3.8x as many backlinks as a website in positions two to ten. That is a big difference in traffic and profits! And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Use Free Tools

While paid search can turn on a large amount of traffic, most businesses do not optimize their campaigns to get the best return on their investment. The good news is that it is still a way to get traffic. Using free tools to analyze your website’s SEO efforts can help you identify areas for improvement and prioritize them. It’s crucial to know what’s working and what’s not. 

Use Google Analytics or Google Search Console

Google Search Console provides insight into your website’s performance and can help troubleshoot any issues you may have. This tool can also help you identify unindexed pages and broken URLs, so you can make changes to improve them. Additionally, it shows if your website is mobile-friendly. These metrics will ensure that your website remains visible even when it is not on the first page of search results.

Monitor Your Site’s Traffic Growth

Another significant thing to monitor when using a search engine marketing strategy for small businesses is your site’s traffic growth. The number of visitors scrolling your site will give you valuable insight into your customers’ behavior. Using the data, you can improve your marketing strategy. 

The “Acquisition” tab in Google Analytics gives you a wealth of data about the people who visit your website. That data piece includes demographic facts such as age, location, and gender. You can also view the different traffic sources through the “All Traffic” tab. This tab displays the various traffic sources to your website.

Confirm Your Site’s Domain Authority

A vital component of a successful search engine marketing strategy for small businesses is monitoring your site’s domain authority or DA. DA is a measure of your site’s importance in Google’s algorithm. The higher the DA, the more likely your site will rank well. However, it’s important to remember that your competitors also work to achieve a high DA, so you must constantly monitor your SEO progress.

Check These Useful Tools

You can check the domain authority component using SEO PowerSuite’s Keyword Research tools (Ranking Keywords, Keyword gap, TF-IDF Explorer, etc.). It also allows checking the Domain Strength of any website which is great if you search for link-building opportunities. A DS of forty to fifty is considered average, fifty to sixty is considered good, and anything over sixty is excellent. Keep in mind that the DS of your competitors will have different meanings depending on the context. A 40-point DS is achievable for a small business, while a large corporation’s site will require more work and investment to achieve a higher DS.

One of the most popular ways to determine your site’s domain strength is using SEO PowerSuite. This tool allows getting a visual representation of your website’s SEO characteristics and enables you to compare the ranking strength of different websites. 

Besides ensuring that your domain authority (also domain strength) is high enough, a high DA also increases your chances of ranking well in search engine results. Domain authority fluctuates across time and is affected by a variety of factors. For example, higher-authority sites may experience massive link growth and skew the scaling process. Conversely, lower-authority sites may have low-authority backlinks that do not contribute to their search engine rankings.

If you are looking for ways to power up your backlink profile, you can use Link Assistant. This tool allows discovering link-building opportunities that will help to enhance your website’s authority and, therefore, ranking. 

Measure the Success of Your SEM Strategy

Assessing the success of your SEM strategy for small businesses is crucial to ensure that it is bringing in the desired ROI. To determine if the strategy is working, you must identify the objectives of your website. Once you have defined these objectives, create a campaign based on these goals. Metrics are vital in determining the effectiveness of your campaign, which include cost per action, return on advertising spend, and conversion rate.

Track the Number of Conversions

That is the best way to determine how much money has been wasted on irrelevant keywords. Once you’ve selected which keywords drive the most traffic, you can refine your SEM campaign to focus on more relevant ones. Some of the reasons why people don’t convert from your site include an irrelevant search query, an ineffective keyword group, or a poorly written copy. You can also filter out irrelevant terms using negative keywords.

Check Your Keyword Usage

You can use keyword research tools to discover the most profitable keywords for your business. Keyword research tools will give you a list of relevant keywords your customers are searching for. You can use this information to outperform your competitors. You can also use Google Trends to observe a keyword’s search volume. 

Assess the Effectiveness of Your Paid Search Ads

You can track and assess the effectiveness of your advertisements and make adjustments based on data. The results from these paid search ads will help you understand whether you’re on track or not. You can even experiment with different adverts and keywords until you find the ones that work for your business.

Wrapping Up

A well-developed website will attract more visitors, both engaged and low-interested observers. A search engine optimization strategy will increase your traffic, but you must make sure your website is high quality. You may also create landing pages that are optimized for search engines. These optimizations will increase traffic to your website and raise brand awareness. In any case, you will generate more sales.





Leena Ray

Digital Marketing Writer and Editor


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