See 5 Proactive Ways to Minimize a Drop in Search Ranking
It’s possible that you’ve been there. You get out of bed one morning and you can’t find your site in its customary high first page ranking in Google. You search in vain through page 1, 2, 3 and 4. Then you see it, way down on page 5, pretty much invisible so far as web traffic goes.
Before doing anything drastic and bloody, we would like to offer you some practical steps to take that can minimize the freefall your pages may be in.
Search engine seismic shifts happen, and while you can’t control Google, you can do something to minimize the effects such a shuffle in your ranking will have on your business. To help with that we’ve come up with 5 ways you can make the best of an adverse situation.
5 Things you can do to minimize a drop in rankings
- Have a site and rankings monitor in place – It’s a very smart idea to have your site’s search engine position monitored, so you can not only see when there is a big problem, but also the trends that are taking place over time with your rankings. There is no substitute for this kind of intelligence.
- Plug into social media more – There is a vast audience out there you can turn to for help with traffic and links, and this is social media. Even though it may be harder in some ways to convert this traffic, the mere fact that’s coming is a sign that your pages are still relevant, and this matters to Google.
- Look at your Google Webmaster Tools – This is a valuable resource that can help you spot penalties and SEO issues very quickly. If you are not signed up for this, sign up now. It’s free and is packed with useful assistance.
- Look into your SEO – when there are ranking problems, it’s always wise to look in the mirror first. See what if any SEO issues you can find in your pages, such as missing title tags, descriptions, alt tags, flash and some of the other 200 or so ranking factors. Like it or not, these issues are part of how Google ranks you pages.
- Produce more content and links – Make it your mission to continue to create good content and incoming backlinks. It might be a good idea to expand your topic and keyword profile at this point, while still remaining relevant, to see if these pages begin to rank well.
