What to Do When Your Site Loses Ranking

What to Do When Your Site Loses Ranking

Maybe this has happened to you: you awaken one morning to find your site has disappeared from the search engine universe, nowhere to be found. Even though it's only dropped a few pages, it might as well be a thousand.
Before doing anything radical and reactionary, we would like to offer you some sensible steps to take that can minimize the freefall your pages may be in.
Search engine shifts happen, and while you can't control Google, you can take action to minimize the effects such a shuffle in your ranking has on your business. To help with this we've come up with 5 ways you can make the best of a bad situation.

5 Strategies to minimize a drop in rankings

1. Have a site and rankings monitor in place - It's a very good idea to have your site's search engine position monitored, so you can not only see when there is a huge problem, but also the trends that are taking place over time with your rankings. There is no substitute for this kind of intelligence.
2. 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. Although 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.
3. 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, avail yourself of it immediately. It is free and is packed with useful assistance.
4. 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 with 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.
5. Produce more content and links - Make it your mission to carry on and create good content and incoming backlinks. It might be a smart idea to expand your topic and keyword profile at this point, while still remaining relevant, to see if these pages begin to rank well.