Isn’t it annoying when you have given your content the best you have got, and yet you are still lagging when you check your rank position? Anyone would be concerned with a deteriorating performance in any area of work.
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This, however, does not mean that you are a failure, but rather that you could be doing something wrong.
Reasons Why Your SEO Rankings Have Dropped
In SEO, the competition for the first position on SERP results is so stiff that if you are not always on your toes, you will lose out a lot. Lucky for you, below are several reasons explaining why your SEO rankings could have dropped since the last time you checked.
1. New design and website:
Change is the main reason you will be thrown off the bus in your SEO rankings. Technically, when you decide to launch a new design for your site, it is automatic that your SEO rankings will drop.
The reason is that most people do not have a proper 301 redirect plan in place. Regardless of how much better the new website is in comparison to the older version if you do not adequately optimize it before launching it, your SEO rankings will drop, and it may take you around 1-2 months to recover it if you are not careful.
2. Google updates :
Google updates can mess you up if you are not keen enough to master them. The worst bit is that, other than the fact that the updates are random and regular, Google doesn’t always announce their algorithmic changes.
Ideally, be intentional about picking out any changes that happen, so that you can avoid attracting penalties that you do not know of along with a drop in your SEO rankings.
3. The Google dance :
Sometimes, Google has not performed an update, but they are just playing around, testing certain variables. If therefore you are too focused on search rankings, you may deem your SEO rankings as poor when in the real sense, you are doing so much better than you give yourself credit for.
Notice that the fluctuations are different from one day to another, one location to another, among other variables.
4. Tracking the wrong rankings :
Sometimes, you are not even performing poorly on search results. It could be that the entire time you are worrying about your dropped SEO rankings, you have been tracking the wring ranking reports.
For example, you may be only tracking generic keywords. In such a case, your site may not appear anywhere in the first place of search engines. Change your strategy by typing in full sentence with the primary keywords incorporated, and see how much change that will have.
5. Competitors :
You do not have to look too far all the time for you to find what the problem is. Most times, people lose their spot on the first page of search engines because of stiff competition.
Realize that new websites are being launched online every day. If someone has become better in optimizing their site than you are at yours, then your SEO will keep dropping.
6. Your keyword strategy is outdated :
Like you worry about the up-to-datedness of your content, worry about your SEO strategy. If your keyword strategy is outdated, then you may be targeting the wrong keywords altogether, with such, there is no way Google will show you on top of searches when other webmasters are doing it right.
Take time to experiment with different keywords, so you are using the new keywords or phrases that your target audience is searching for online.
7. Losing good links :
The loss of something good is felt by virtually anyone. In SEO, you work so hard to earn one good link. However, if for whatever reason you start losing the good-quality links, your site will start SEO rankings have dropped.
Sometimes people withdrawal their referrals and link outs because they perceive your site to be losing value in matters of quality. If this is the case, then you need to worry more than just about losing the links.
However, some other reasons could be that the other websites were brought down, which is not your fault. Whatever the reason, the only way around it is to continuously keep earning other high-quality links.
There is still a lot for you to learn about SEO rankings, among it, how you can track your rankings as shown here https://serpbook.com/blog/rank-trackers/.