Have your rankings on Google dropped during the past few weeks? Search engine ranking algorithms change all the time. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to recover your rankings.
Step 1: Check if it is a real ranking drop
The lower search results usually fluctuate much more than the top search 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 2: Analyze the situation
You can only react to the changes, if you find out what actually happened. Here are some questions that can help you to identify the problem:
After identifying the affected pages, you can proceed to the details:
The Ranking Monitor in SEOprofiler has the answers to these questions. The Ranking Monitor shows the ranking changes of your own web pages, and the ranking changes of your competitors.
Here’s an example:
You might find out that the ranking changes happened to short category-level keywords (for example, the keyword “shoes”). 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 this example, Google decided that people who search for “shoes” are interested in getting information, not in buying.
Step 3: make changes carefully
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 impact on your rankings.
