Here are the SEO risks you should take:

1 - Making Changes and A/B Testing

SEO was ultimately designed to attract more organic traffic to your website, which is expected to lead to more transactions and revenue for your brand. However, if no one clicks on your website, none of these will happen. 

It’s important to note that ranking well for specific keywords doesn’t guarantee a sharp increase in visits or income. If you want to know what’s preventing potential customers from changing their minds about buying from you, you’ll need to make changes and test them, known as A/B testing. It involves altering one element at a time, ranging from meta descriptions to the actual content and testing them against other variations.

While this sounds like a logical thing to do, it does come with some risks. You’ll likely go through some trial and error to develop the right wording and layout combination that will give you the traffic you want. That means, at some point, you may be reducing your current traffic while you tweak and adjust your website. Still, the risk will ultimately be worth it.

2 - Investing in High-Quality Backlinks



You should generally focus on internally linking your other pages when you upload articles, videos, and other types of content. That way, you’ll keep your visitors on your website for longer, encouraging them to browse and eventually buy from you.

However, there is value in linking to another company’s website, even if it means possibly encouraging a visitor to leave your page.

Backlinks, or the practice of a website linking to yours, are an essential part of SEO.

Companies want to get as many high-quality backlinks as possible since it helps improve rankings and build authority, establishing trust in your target audience and presenting yourself as a credible source of information.

Nonetheless, backlinks aren’t all about receiving them; you’ll have to give some as well. Even though you’ll risk losing visitors to other websites, you’ll gain a lot in return since you’re showing Google that you regularly reference trustworthy, high-ranking websites. 

If you feature links to spammy, malicious, or poorly kept websites, you may get penalized by Google. The same applies if you receive too many links to your site from low-quality websites.

3 - Improving Your Site's URL Structure



Keeping URLs short and memorable is essential to encourage visitors to check your website out frequently.

It should contain only your company name, be simple to remember, and concise. Convoluting it with other words will only confuse your visitors and make them second-guess the URL’s legitimacy.

However, the URLs of your other pages should have your focus keywords on them while being specific about what they contain. It should also be short. If they get too descriptive, the search engine will truncate it, which means your visitors won’t see the full URL nor know the topic it discusses.

With this in mind, you’ll want to review your URLs and consider overhauling the site’s structure altogether to improve them. While this will help you clean up your website, you’ll also risk losing your spot on search engine results pages, which will also affect your traffic. 

Still, if you do this properly with the help of affordable SEO services for small businesses, you’ll end up with an organized, streamlined structure that can help you rank higher than ever before.

4 - Updating and Redesigning Your Website



Design trends come and go, which means that your website will need a periodic update to stay relevant. However, giving your website a facelift also comes with its own risks.

For instance, your visitors may have difficulty navigating through your website, as they’ve grown accustomed to the old design. You’ll also risk losing some brand recognition if you completely change your website, and your visitors may be wondering if they’ve gone to the right place.

Fortunately, you can avoid most of these risks by working with a web design agency, which will know how to repackage your brand to reflect your values and messaging while incorporating more modern designs.

It also gives you the chance to optimize your website further for search engines, changing URL structures, and other details you need to tweak to achieve a responsive website design.

Even though your ranking may dip, improving your website will help you bounce back to the top. A cleaner, more attractive website also has a better chance of bringing in more visitors!

5 - Buying Available Domains



If you’ve settled on your second choice of a company URL because your first one was taken, you’ll want to check its availability from time to time.

Some website owners do not renew their domains, which means other people can buy and use them. You can even earn more valuable backlinks when you buy a domain with history, mainly when you redirect them to your website.

However, there are a few risks associated with this, so it’s something you should do if you know what you’re getting yourself into; when in doubt, it’s best to ask top SEO companies for their advice.

For starters, you’ll want to avoid expired domains filled with spammy links and content, as they’ll also transfer to your website. You’ll also want to make sure your new domain is professional, legitimate, and related to your business.

Conclusion

SEO can make or break your business since it improves your website’s visibility. Getting your website URL in front of your target audience is crucial to get them to click on them and visit your virtual space, so you’ll want to invest in your SEO efforts as much as possible.

By following these SEO best practices, you’ll enjoy more website traffic, brand visibility, and revenue.

About The Stack Group

The Stack Group is a web design agency and digital marketing company offering social media management, affordable SEO services for small businesses, and more. We believe in giving small business owners an edge over their larger competitors to help them thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.

If you are looking to increase your search engine ranking, schedule a call with us!