Are Your Page Ranks Dropping? Here’s Why!

SEO is a pretty complex task to handle, but worthy. Finding the right blend of keywords and content to bump your rankings is a sure way to increase traffic. Increased traffic leads to more conversions, which leads to more profit. It’s a wonderful thing—but what happens when your rankings decline, instead? Do you lose resources, time, falling into a death spiral where you don’t have as much to devote to SEO and so continue to plummet?
Rankings drops happen. The important thing is to not panic because you need to immediately look at why this happened and then form a plan to deal with it. Knowledge is power, and here it’s key to restoring your rankings.

What Are Rankings Drops and What Causes Them?

Rankings drops, in the simplest terms, are a decline in your search engine results positioning. If your site occupied the first page of Google search results for relevant topics, and now it’s on the tenth page, that’s significant (and horrifying!) drop. It directly translates to reduced traffic for your website, with all the concomitant consequences.
Unfortunately, many factors can contribute to a ranking drop. The cause could be technical issues, or a content policy change, or even a competitor edging you out. Sometimes, a little detective work is necessary to uncover the cause so you can form a proper plan.

The Top 5 Reasons Your Rankings Drop

Competitor Took Your Position

One simple reason you lose rankings is that your competitor(s) took your position. They might have undergone a restructure that improved traffic, their SEO researchers were faster, or they made changes that make their product more relevant. This is one of the easier causes of rankings drop to combat because you can look to see what your competitors are doing differently that allows them to take over.
Is your content outdated? That can be a big problem when it comes to rankings because it won’t take users long to realize that you’re not offering the latest content that they’re after. Nothing kills interest faster than checking blog posts relevant to the search topic and finding the latest one was seven months ago about content that has changed drastically in the past few months.
Metadata is important as a way of helping to find the relevant data. If your metadata is subpar, your users will have a more frustrating experience as they can’t find what they are looking for. Think of it as a library without a good filing system. Everyone struggles to find the book they want, and eventually, many of them will just go to another library.
Competition is just that: a race to the top of the rankings. Your competitors won’t sleep on rankings changes, either, so you will be well-served to stay agile on potential changes.

Change of URL

Changing the URL can break links across a multitude of pages and throw off your search results. Broken links directly hinder traffic from reaching your website, and if the new URL isn’t properly tied to accurate metadata, you’re in for a lot of missed connections.

Website Redesign

Website redesigns, even if it’s just the homepage, aren’t always successful. Invariably, some users will be displeased with the changes, having become accustomed to or simply prefer the old style. The redesign probably changes the positioning and possibly the frequency of some keywords or content, as well, which can have a negative effect on your rankings.
When considering a page redesign, carefully consider everything that you need to retain in a recognizable form. This content will help minimize the negative impact of a style change.

Loss of Strong Backlinks

According to Google’s own data (released in 2012), the quality of backlinks is just as important as quantity. High-quality backlinks take time to develop, however, requiring a lot of effort: cultivating good references in relevant websites, consistently delivering quality content, staying attuned to changing trends.
If you have lost strong backlinks, it’s important to understand why. Did you change your content in a way the linking website owner disliked? Maybe your changes simply broke links instead. It’s also possible that the website owners broke your links by redesigning their own websites. The latter is an easy fix, by contacting the owners to restore your links. If it’s your own content that has caused trustworthy sources to break links, look at the changes you’ve made to figure out what caused this change in perspective.

Page Speed Drops

Absolutely nothing kills user interest faster than a terrible webpage experience. Slow web pages are the leading contenders in this regard. Users’ time is limited, and there are always alternatives vying for their attention. If your page isn’t loading fast enough, they’ll simply seek out another one.
Do not overstuff your page with ads, poorly optimized images, and pop-ups that kill page speed. Reducing server response time, reducing image sizes, and overall optimizing your content delivery is of paramount importance.

What to Do to Recover Your Site Rankings?

Build Better Content

If you want to build a quality backlink profile, enhance the user experience, and boost your esteem in the “eyes” of search engines, build better content. There’s no better way to boost your rankings. Quality content directly translates to improved user experiences, more recommendations, and attracts more trustworthy affiliates.

Target Better/Stronger Keywords

One of the basic components of SEO is targeting the right keywords. You’ll need to put in due diligence researching keywords, user intent, and how your content meets the needs it purports to satisfy.

Perform Optimized Outreach for Stronger Backlinks

Cultivating a network of trustworthy and quality website affiliates is a great way to boost your rankings. The better your content and the more you can create mutually beneficial ties, the faster you’ll see your backlink profile grow.

Ensure Page Speed is Optimized

This is a simple solution in theory, but in practice requires some finesse. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of wanting to put everything on a single page, cover all the bases, get as much content in the user’s face as possible. Typically, this is counterproductive, overwhelming the user and bogging down your page speed. Keep designs simple. Smaller image sizes, fewer pop-ups, annoying colors, faster loading for JavaScript, reduced plugins and scripts, the list goes on. There are myriad options to reduce page speed, many of which start with the design intent.
Keep it simple and you’ll keep users happy.

Conclusion

Ranking drops can be costly, but they don’t have to be catastrophic. Learn how and why your rankings have slipped and you can take steps to fix the problem. Ensure your content is well-curated and its delivery optimized. Maintain strong backlinks backed up by strong content and you’ll boost your rankings to where you want them.