The importance of an SEO-driven, organic search content strategy cannot be overstated. In today’s world, people use Google to search for easy answers to questions and problems they may have. So it stands to reason that good SEO content has the power to attract potential customers to your website and may even be the primary driver of visitors to your blog or site.
According to Search Engine Land, organic search is responsible for 53% of all site traffic, while paid is only responsible for 15%. Thus proving that organic search drives significantly more traffic than paid advertising.
It’s clear that people trust organic content over paid ads, which speaks to the importance of creating quality content that Google finds worthy of ranking near the top of the search results for particular search terms.
What To Do If Your Page’s Organic SEO ranking has dropped
The first thing to do is don’t panic. If your search rankings have suddenly, or even gradually, taken a nose dive, there is something that you can do to fix the problem.
All you need do is take a deep breath and follow the below steps.
1. First take the time to verify that your search rankings have truly dropped
Before you take any sort of action, first benchmark your webpage’s new position from its last known ranking to confirm that it has fallen.
To confirm a search ranking drop, use rank tracker tools found on platforms like Moz or Semrush. You can also use Google Search Console, which automatically tracks your average search rankings over time.
Assuming that you know what the search ranking was before the drop, you can try searching for a relevant query on your browser in Incognito Mode or in a Private window (which doesn’t track your search history) to see where your ranking now sits.
2. Give it two weeks
While an SEO ranking drop can be disappointing (especially for a page that brings in a lot of traffic) the first step, after confirming the drop, is to wait two weeks. Don’t make any changes before then, so says the founder of Backlinko, Brian Dean.
Why? Because the drop may very well be due to an update from Google or a technical issue with your website, especially if the drop was rapid and dramatic. So wait two weeks and then check to see if your ranking returns to its original spot. You may find that the drop was temporary.
If that’s not the case, continue on to step 3.
3. Consider the urgency of fixing the issue
If the ranking drop seems legit, ask yourself and your colleagues how it will affect your business and if it might contribute to a decrease in sales or profit.
Start by analysing each page and ask, did a few of your blog posts receive 10 percent less traffic year on year? Or it is a more serious issue? For example, traffic to your homepage fell 80 percent in the last month.
A clear picture of what’s going on can help you determine the urgency behind correcting the problem and how much time, energy and money you should invest in remedying the situation..
4. Identify the cause of the ranking drop
There are a number of SEO tools that can help you identify the cause of the ranking drop. However, some factors may not be immediately apparent. A big change or update from Google, for example, may be what’s causing the problem, so start there.
You can also ask your website developers if any major changes were recently made to your company’s website. Perhaps changes that contributed to a sudden or gradual ranking drop?
If that’s still not the source of the problem, you can go a step further and check on Google Search Console to see if Google is having any trouble crawling a page or if you’re facing a Google penalty.
It might also be that your SEO competitors recently made noticeable changes and that’s what may have bumped up their rankings to overtake yours.
If the problem causing the drop isn’t direct, you may need to look at improving your website’s content.
5. Take action to correct the issues
Once you’ve identified the problem, you can take action to correct the issue. It’s essential to take a page-by-page approach to remedy a search ranking drop because what you do to improve search rankings can vary among different web pages.
Oftentimes the content just needs to be improved and updated. This can include, getting more backlinks, adding more list items to a blog post, and upping the word count.
You also might want to check for alt text in images or address a keyword density issue. Whatever you do, remember to keep users’ search intent front of mind.
Conclusion
It can take some time for Google to re-index pages after you’ve made changes. So make a note to go back and check to see if your ranking has improved a month after making the changes.
After that, continue to monitor your page rankings on Google Search Console or other rank trackers.
