Has your traffic dipped recently? If it has and you have no idea why, take a closer look at your search rankings – you might have dipped. With Google and other search engines constantly manipulating their algorithms, even the slightest change on their end can have drastic effects on your end.
Here are four reasons you may have gone from No.1 to No. 8 (or lower) for a specific keyword:
- Your competition is better. Look who’s ranking above you now and take a look at their pages. Is their content higher quality than yours? If their blog posts are more informative, feature multiple subject matter experts or do something that yours don’t, then odds are that search engines like that content more. The solution: Do what they do – but even better.
- Your content is old. While page history is still an important factor in search engine optimization, your content may not be as relevant as it used to be. If visitors are clicking your link and finding old information, they’ll bounce very quickly – and negatively impact your rankings. Freshen up your old blog posts regularly.
- Your backlinks have declined. The Internet is a huge space, and websites are always launching or shutting down. Check your backlinks to see if you’ve lost any traction. If some higher quality sites are no longer linking to your post, then you’ve lost some valuable link juice. Find replacements or freshen up your content (see #2) to see if they’ll link back to you.
- Your website is slow. Check your site’s speed and see if it’s loading properly. Site speed is key to a good user experience: If a site loads too slowly, people will leave and possibly visit your competitor; search engines also take page speed into account when determining ranking. Remember, not everyone has the same internet speed as you– just because the site loads fine on your business’s high-speed line doesn’t mean it loads as quickly on your customer’s not-so-fast home service.
For help on improving your search engine rankings, call Wax Custom Communications at 305-350-5700 or visit waxcom.com.
