Search engine optimization is often seen as being a glorious way to make an online business successful. Although this can certainly be the case, it’s worth pointing out that some SEO projects don’t necessarily go according to plan.

That can become a significant problem if deficiencies aren’t spotted and corrected as soon as possible. Unfortunately, too many SEO campaigns are allowed to stutter allow, failing to give the business the expected boost.

So how do you know if you’re likely to run into similar problems?

The early days

It can be hard to make an early assessment of the performance of an optimization strategy. In fact, instant results can actually be a sign that things are about to go horribly wrong! That may sound strange but it’s actually true that some unethical approaches will have an immediate impact, before causing your website to fall in the rankings at a later stage.

It’s also true that on-page changes won’t necessarily lead to an upward movement in the search engine rankings. It can take a while for the search engines to take account of the changes that you’re making.

If you’ve employed an SEO consultant, however, then you should certainly be worried if you can’t see much evidence of activity. Those early days and weeks are critical in terms of getting the on-page elements working correctly.

Running into problems

You may first become aware that things aren’t going according to plan if you fail to get the expected rise in rankings after a few months. Since the whole point of SEO is to improve your search engine positioning, it’s clearly going to be a concern if you don’t witness any improvements.

It may be time to take a step back and look at your approach. Is everything being done that really needs to be done? Is more effort required? Have you selected target keywords that are simply too competitive?

If you can’t obtain better rankings, then the entire campaign is going to fail.

But what happens if you have got the rankings, but you don’t see an increase in income levels as a result? This may indicate that your target keywords simply aren’t right.

It may be that they’re not generating enough visitors. Alternatively, the problem could be that the keywords don’t result in the right type of visitors. In other words, they may be attracting browsers rather than buyers.

Either way, it’s wise to think about what’s causing the problem? Could you make changes to your website, products or services in order to convert those viewers into buyers? Or is it time to think about targeting a different set of keywords?

Monitoring the campaign

The key to identifying problems is to ensure that you are actually monitoring performance in a serious manner. If you’re distracted and unable to concentrate on the SEO results, then you may make the mistake of allowing things to continue for too long.

Ideally, you should be looking to take action before you spend too much time and money going down the wrong path.

Keith Barrett provides SEO Hampshire campaigns, as part of his role as a search engine consultant. He’s worked with numerous businesses over the past decade, helping to improve their online marketing performance.