Optimisation change caused a drop
-
We are a web design company and SEO has never been our main thing but we can do it for clients quite well. We were ranking under web design and our location quite well up until 3 months ago. We didn't really have much on our page for web design but targetted website design instead. Our SEO guy who has proved himself for getting some of our clients to the top of Google under very generic search terms recommended we focus on Web Design, so I changed the site accordingly. 2 days later Google has seen our changes and now we've changed our H1 and copy. However, our ranking has dropped 1 place yet again. Obviously I've now panicked and am stressing (even feeling sick) about what to do. He is away until next week so I can't ask him.
Could it be that Google has seen we're targetting the word and pushed us down? Shall I wait for the link building he's doing? My own link building lately seems to knock us down a place with every new link I'm doing (and I'm only adding the odd link - not spamming at all). What's odd is that we're still doing extremely well for keywords that aren't even mentioned in our copy at all really.
If you could help or offer advice I'd be very grateful.
-
You're right, I should not have panicked. I've got my placements back now.
What's more confusing is that my website design and local county now appear better than before and I've not got that keyword on my page anymore.
Anyone care to explain?
-
My first piece of advice - DON'T PANIC!
Reactionary changes made in haste will more than often make the situation worse.
I'm in a similar situation, ranking near the top for web design and my location. While my ranking seemed to be relatively stable in November, I've noticed that it's been bouncing around +/- 1 or 2 positions. Looking at the Looking at the slightly longer picture though, I can see that I'm flipping places back and forth with higher ranking competition who appears to be dropping. (I'm ranking higher increasingly often). I'm hoping that my next push to build some more links and post some additional high-value content is going to help.
The point here, is that it's the overall trend that matters. If you disappear from the search results completely then I'd worry. If you're just experiencing a bit of a wobble then I'd watch for a trend.
That doesn't stop you building links and promoting you business/site which would help anyway.
Don't let yourself get overly fixated on the ranking position either. While generally the higher the position the more traffic you can get, you can actually find it's possible to get more traffic than a higher ranking result just by having a good, compelling snippet (title/description).
So, don't panic. Get the evidence, look for the trend and then make strategic rather than reactionary decisions and continue with good quality promotion of your site/business.
Hope this helps and good luck.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Recent drop in SERP from #1 to #2\.
Our #1 priority keyword, which we've ranked #1 for years, suddenly we're #2. And, the page listed above us doesn't seem to be even compete. Moz On-Page has us at an A and them at a C. When I review the html, I don't even seem any exactly keyword match or matching text on the page. I checked are ranking last week and didn't notice any change - so I've narrowed it down to something changing in the last 4-5 days. Also of note, when I test, We're #1 on mobile, #2 on desktop. Sorry to not list the url's. omitted intentionally. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FX4nWOO0 -
Newly Acquired Website--Questions on Changing Permalink Structure
I just acquired a new website. The domain is about 7 years old with around 1000 indexed pages in google. Decent domain authority at 34, PR 4, a lot of inbound links. The thing that's driving me crazy is the permalink structure--set up as month/post name in wordpress http://xxxxxxx.com/2015/01/sample-post/ Based on my experience and I could be wrong, but I would think that the structure would be more effective with just post name and no date. Am I absolutely insane at this point to try and change it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tryfantasy0 -
DAs dropped for many pages?
I recently noticed that the domain authorities dropped by 5 or 6 points for us and for our competitors. And for many other pages that I check regularly. Was the algorithm changed or is it just me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FCRMediaLietuva0 -
Significant drop in web rankings
We have two websites and last week we had a significant drop in search engine rankings. Some of these search rankings we have been top 3 for the past 5 years and now we are not in the top 20. Last weekend we changed our hosting provider and IP addresses for the first time in over 7 years. Now is there a way we could work out if we have been hit by the latest Penguin update or if the change in hosting / IP has caused these drop in rankings? I would appreciate any thought or ideas at all.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing0 -
Is it worth changing themes to be Responsive, and risk a SERP change?
I've got a site that ranks #1 for it's term. It's Worpress on Thesis 1.85. The site is not responsive and cannot be because Thesis 1x is not (and Thesis 1x is a dead end). I really would like my site responsive, but I fear changing things might affect my #1 rank. The least impactful change I could do is move to Thesis 2.x, but I have come to really dislike the company and hate to get locked in again. There are other frameworks I would prefer to move to, but their impact on my pages' source would be much more. So, my question is, is it worth moving to a new theme (keeping the layout looking exactly the same, although the "source" would look different) just to make the site responsive? Is it that important?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0 -
Sudden drop in PageRank to Unranked
Howdy, A clients website has just dismorning (8/FEB/13) gone from index page PR:4 to Unranked including all inner pages on the domain. There is no contact on GWT or penalty email from Google. All organic rankings seem to be fine, and i read about the GWT backlink glitch earlier. Should I expect the worst? Thanks.. Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webprolive0 -
Traffic has dropped off a cliff
I just spent thousands of $$ redesigning my site. Have a Wordpress site now with Yoast SEO. However, my organic traffic has dropped of a cliff. Can any of you help me figure out why? www.UltimateBasicTraining.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports1 -
Should we always avoid drop-down menus?
In Google's SEO Guide, they say avoid the use of drop-down menus, page 12: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf But, is this always true? What if you create the drop down purely using HTML & CSS? Is it fine to use a bit of javascript to create the drop-down menu, or should it only be HTML & CSS?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0