While it’s difficult to ascertain as to what could be the reasons, here a few guidelines to maximise the returns from seo.
Some of the areas where the site could be lacking are
Content
Ideally each page should target 3 or 4 keyphrases. It’s not wise to cram 20 keyphrases in a single page. If you have a 5 page website, select 15-20 keyphrases and focus on 3 or 4 keyphrases per page. Make sure to include those phrases in the content without giving the impression that they are being forced upn the user.
Keyphrases too competitive
If you expect to rank highly for a phrases such as “web design” within 15 days, you are setting yourself up for disapointment. To dislodge already well entrenched sites, you would need lots of efforts and tons of patience.
Wrong selection of keyphrases
This could be because no research was done while selecting keyphrases. The question to ask is “Are those phrases a reflection of your products and services.? ” If not, the only way out is to build lots of links pointing to your site with related sites using the keyphrases in the anchor text, which surely is a time consuming endeavour. While selecting keyphrases, think like your potential customers. What query would you enter in a search engine while searching for products and services similar to your’s ?
Too much flash and javascript
Google in it’s guidelines for webmasters says that ” our crawlers may experience problems indexing Flash pages. If you’re concerned that Flash content on your pages may be inhibiting Google’s ability to crawl your site, you may want to consider using a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site. If features such as Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.”
Search engine’s don’t read images. If your site relies heavily on them, it will be difficult to obtain high ranking.
Not enough links
Search engine’s use quality and quantity of inbound links to determine the relevancy of a site. Each link is a vote for seach engine’s.
Site is full of spam
There are no “quick-fix solutions” in a succesfull search engine optimization campaign. By employing spam methods – hidden text, hidden links, cloaking,keyword stuffing etc, you are on your way to being penalized by search engine’s.