Sudden drop in ranking for keyword. Might i have a penalty?

[amybethmegjo]

I redesigned two websites last year www.studiowest.com and www.tracsd.com and didn't suffer any drop in rankings.

About a month ago we redesigned again but this time merged the two sites into one, www.studiowest.com. All was well and we were #1 ranked for "recording studio san diego" UNTIL today. (Suddenly we are off the front page at #12. We are still in the 3 pack from my view.)

I'm trying to figure out what happened. We did 301 redirects. Could I have been penalized? I'm trying to work on my Google Business pages, there were too many, maybe that affected it?

What's the best way to check if I'm penalized or otherwise figure out what happened?

[amybethmegjo]

Thank you again! I think it's a great idea—I actually wanted a paragraph on top but others wanted to try it this way first, they thought a really clean page would be most friendly, but maybe we're so used to knowing what the place is about that we forgot others need some orientation with text!

I've been researching the sudden drop in rankings and I don't think we did any of the things that could cause it. I'm hoping it's the Google flux thing and will go away. Guess we'll see.

In any case I am very grateful that you commented, was VERY helpful.

Amy

[MarieHaynes]

You're very welcome Amy.

Here's Moz's guide on title tags:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

It's recommended to put some keywords first, but you want to be sure not to keyword stuff. So, in your case, an example of a decent title tag might be "Recording Studio in San Diego - Studio West".

Google likes to see content above the fold. What I mean by "above the fold" is the area of the screen that is visible without scrolling down. I do find that when I go to your site, I can easily tell what your site is about by reading the above the fold content. The phrase, "San Diego's Premier Studio and Music Production School" is good and makes sense. (A lot of sites have almost no good above the fold content.)

I'm betting though, that you might see more traction if you put a paragraph of text below your slider that explains more about what your business offers. That text will give Google more to index and searchers something to read.

[amybethmegjo]

Hi Marie,

Thank you for your quick answer! I won't panic just yet. No manual penalties.

Regarding your other suggestions:

1. Every page except the home page has a keyword before the brand for the title. But you're saying it's important to have more on title tag the home page, not just the brand? I can do that for sure.

2. What do you mean by "very little text above the fold?" I suppose you mean on the home page there isn't enough text on top of the page?

Thank you!

Amy

[MarieHaynes]

Hi. To check if you have a manual action, go to Google Search Console --> Search Traffic --> Manual actions.

With that said, I see studiowest.com at #3 local and on page 2 for "recording studio san diego". There has been a lot of turbulence in the SERPS and I've seen a number of clients that have disappeared for a day or two and then suddenly reappeared (often higher than they first were.)

I had a quick look though and I think there are a number of changes you could make to help if things don't work themselves out. Your titletag is your brand name - you should have a few keywords in there, preferably at the start of the title tag. You also have very little text above the fold for readers and search engines to read.

Those are good things to change regardless, but I wouldn't make too many big changes without waiting for a few days to see what Google does.

Best of luck!