This happens to many webmasters at some point: you check your rankings and you find out that your rankings have dropped. What can you do if this happens to your rankings?
It is normal that the search result pages change
The lower results usually fluctuate much more than the higher results. If your website is new in the top 5 results, you can expect more fluctuation than websites that have been listed in the top 5 results for a longer time.
You can also expect higher fluctuation if the keywords are related to a hot topic. If Google shows results that are marked with “two hours ago”, or “one day ago” then it’s likely that the keyword is related to such a hot topic.
If your website was ranked in the same positions for several weeks before the rankings dropped, you should take a closer look at the changes.
Step 1: find out what actually happened
Before you can react to the changes, you have to find out what actually changed. Here are some questions that can help you to identify the problem:
- On which search engine has the ranking change occurred?
- Has the change happened in a particular region?
- Which pages have been affected by the change?
- Has the ranking change influenced your conversions and your website traffic?
- Did the same happen a year ago? This might be a seasonal issue.
When you have identified the pages, you can go into detail:
- Which keywords caused the traffic change?
- Which competitors gained rankings for these keywords?
The Ranking Monitor in SEOprofiler has the answers to these questions.
Example:
You might find out that the ranking changes happened to short category-level keywords. You also find out that the pages and websites that gained rankings had informational character. The pages and websites that lost rankings were shopping sites.
Things like that happen quite often. Google’s algorithms might have re-evaluated the intent behind a query group. In that case, Google decided that people who search for these keywords are interested in getting information, not in buying.
Step 2: React wisely
Do not arbitrarily change your SEO tactics. Find the reason for the problem and then react wisely.
If your competitors now have better rankings than your site, analyze the pages of your competitors to find out why they rank better than your pages. The Top 10 Optimizer tool in SEOprofiler can help you to do that.
If all of your pages dropped, there might be a technical problem on your website that is the reason for the ranking drop. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler identifies things that can have a negative influence on your rankings.
Improve your pages now
Search result pages change all the time. It is not necessary to react to every shift in the search results. In general, you will get better long-term results if you stick to a plan that follows SEO best practices and that helps your users. Measure your results for at least 4-6 weeks before you draw conclusions.
The tools in SEOprofiler help you to create solid web pages that stand the test of time. You can create your free SEOprofiler account here:
