How do you feel when your content tops the search results? Out of the world? And how do you feel when it falls down? Painful?
When it comes to create a content that’s unique and has potential to attract viewers like anything, a lot of efforts in terms of research, brainstorming and writing are made. However, there are times when even these efforts pay almost nothing. As a result, value of the page declines. But do you know why the tragedy happens? No? Do read this post till the end and discover the real reasons.
Why Rankings Suffer?
In SEO, two terms that perform opposite to each other are stability and search results. If we talk about search engines, they are always working on algorithms in order to serve users with better results. Moving on to the robots, they keep on crawling the websites to look for updates and content they believe they may have missed. Results are affected if they find any changes.
It is suggested to check the present position when rankings drop. However, before diving into the issue and beginning to work on it, checking each and every dropped position is crucial. With the help of certain SEO tools, vital data regarding movements of ranking can be retrieved.
Attention is required towards traffic, URL columns, keywords and positions. Keywords that have lost their popularity and relevancy must be tracked without a delay. Upon finding the pages that have major fall in SERP in terms of a particular keyword, identifying the reason behind is the thing to do.
What Needs To Be Checked?
Ranking and traffic undergo issues due to various reasons. Here, it’s not about finding the problem that’s matter of concern but it’s about how to fix them. Though identifying the problem is something that takes a lot of time, checking everything is the only way to improve the rankings and let the content prove its worth.
Take a look at the parameters to be checked in terms of technical faults:
- Traffic – Surges in traffic take the website down. On that note, whether the server is able to handle high traffic is important to check.
- Page speed – Adding content or images and making changes increase the loading time of a website. Needless to say, this harms the rankings.
- Redirects – 301 redirects are a must to set up while moving to a different server or making a change in the structure of the website. Not doing so affects the way search robots see and treat a website.
- Canonical tags – Upon developing the website architecture, updating the canonical tags is important.
Now comes the turn to look at the parameters to be checked in terms of search trends:
Search trends change anytime, which makes certain keywords less popular. Another thing to keep in mind is that traffic of seasonal business depends on the date.
And what about businesses that aren’t seasonal? Chosen keywords may not work as expected. Want to know why? Because there’s a lot of difference in the way people search nowadays. Long tail keywords have turned important, thanks to the sudden popularity of voice search.
Parameters to be checked in terms of lost links
SERP drop is directly proportional to quality links, since they play significant role in the rankings. Having said that, positions can be recovered by checking as well as working on the link profile. Some particular services enable analyzing the links and tracking the retrieved as well as lost backlinks.
If link profile is the hurdle, converting it into strong point is all it takes. While broken links need to be fixed, removed ones need to be restored. If nothing is possible, creating new ones is the only way out.
Parameters to be checked in terms of competitors
At times, strategies used by competitors to stay ahead are the reason behind lagging behind. Checking positions via SEO tools is helpful. Another thing is finding the SERP winner for the keywords targeted.
When we are talking about the rivals, their content marketing and social media tactics are also important to be analyzed. Their every move needs to be monitored to turn the tables. Once their strong points have been unmasked, best ideas among them must be used but in a way to bring the desired result.
Parameters to be checked in terms of outdated content
Outdated content is always a bad influence for poor rankings and traffic. As far as old content is there, it is of no use in terms of both sharing and linking. Luckily, this problem can be fixed easily and can be kept at bay in the future too. Updating the content time to time with updated information is the solution here.
Parameters to be checked in terms of UX
Poor user experience is more than enough to hurt the rankings, even when everything else is perfect. Making the audience stay on the website for longer duration is very important. Here’s how to do it:
- Simple design: Instead of complex designs and fancy fonts, a user-friendly website is the way to go. While fonts used must be easy to read, colors used in design should be minimum.
- Texts divided into paragraphs: Important information must be easy to find. Content that’s hard to read is a big turn-off.
- Informative headings: When the most important detail is there in the headings, engaging the readers becomes extremely easy.
- Simple website structure: An easy-to-access menu bar helps visitors to select their favored category.
- Mobile-friendly website: When it comes to visit a site, mobile users should be able to do it easily.
- No pop-ups: One of the major things that annoys like anything is a pop-up window.
Don’t Forget To Track
Tracking the websites and reporting on them is the way to stay updated with their positions. Analyzing the data of rankings resulting from tracked keywords is useful.
Get In Action Now
With all the information related to the possible reasons behind decline in rankings and traffic in front of you, bringing results in your favor is not at all difficult. Buckle up now!