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Hi Becky,

What is the URL for your site, and what is it saying?  Also, I will paste here what I put into another post, and append a few steps at the top.

• Add Google Analytics to your website.
• Sign up for google webmaster tools.
• Sign up for google adwords.
• Perform keyword research.
• Prioritize a portion of your keywords based on high search volume, high relevance to your product/service, and low competition (pick out the best words from your list).
• Create Keyword groups from your priority list (you want to go after 10-15 keywords per landing page.  This can be done through effective keyword grouping).
• Create a landing page / content strategy to accomodate your keyword groups.
• Build the pages (or modify existing pages) accordingly, ensuring that you take in to account all of the onsite optimization techniques (H!/H2 structure, URL structure, interlinking, content relevance, keyword frequency, etc).
• Once you have the pages up, perform some research to determine the best places to get inbound links (I use Open Site Explorer on competitor sites to see where they get links, to start, and PageRank (google chrome plugin) to find a nice list of viable inbound link opportunities.
• Work with the inbound link opportunities and use a SERP tracker to monitor your progress, making modifications to the landing pages or link building campaigns as you go.
• Don't forget conversion optimization!  Test those landing pages out and make sure they are converting for you, if not then try things out like clearer messaging/calls to action, trust factors, etc.

Additionally, your site itself may need work in order to be acceptable for SEO.  If you post your URL, I'll check it out.

Ref.: http://www.seomoz.org/q/i-did-great-keyword-research-but-now-what

Hi EGOL, great job... you have completed a very important step!  Try the following process to move forward (I know this is an old post, but it may help if you have missed any steps).

• Prioritize a portion of your keywords based on high search volume, high relevance to your product/service, and low competition (pick out the best words from your list).
• Create Keyword groups from your priority list (you want to go after 10-15 keywords per landing page.  This can be done through effective keyword grouping).
• Create a landing page / content strategy to accomodate your keyword groups.
• Build the pages (or modify existing pages) accordingly, ensuring that you take in to account all of the onsite optimization techniques (H!/H2 structure, URL structure, interlinking, content relevance, keyword frequency, etc).
• Once you have the pages up, perform some research to determine the best places to get inbound links (I use Open Site Explorer on competitor sites to see where they get links, to start, and PageRank (google chrome plugin) to find a nice list of viable inbound link opportunities.
• Work with the inbound link opportunities and use a SERP tracker to monitor your progress, making modifications to the landing pages or link building campaigns as you go.
• Don't forget conversion optimization!  Test those landing pages out and make sure they are converting for you, if not then try things out like clearer messaging/calls to action, trust factors, etc.

Hope this helps!

Brice

Hi Bob,

Google frequently updates it's algorithms (it is not uncommon for ranks to fluctuate), which could be the cause of the drop.  I did check your link profile in Open Site Explorer and it looks like there could be some spammy backlinks not only for your site, but for that specific keyword.

Potential Next Steps:

• I ran your site in GTMetrix, there are some development/redirect items that could be causing problems.  CLICK HERE to see the report for your site.
• Audit your backlink profile and see if you can remove any spammy links that are pointing to your site.
• The word "NLP" appears in the code for your homepage 171 times, it may be good to limit that a bit.
• Beyond SEO, it's always good to think about your users first.  When I visited your site for the first time, it was hard for me to answer some important questions:
  • 1.  Why am I on your website and what can you do for me? (Clear Messaging)
  • 2.  What am I supposed to do on your website? (Clear calls to action).
  • 3.  Why should I come back to your website (Sticky Content)
  • 4.  If I like the content on your website, how do I share it with others? (Social Functionality).

Overall, consider having an SEO consultant or agency audit your entire website.  Google is cracking down on over-optimized sites, so having a ton of anchor text links from a handful of potentially spammy domains pointing to a page that contains a copious number of the targeted keyword may cause google to raise it's eyebrows (potentially hurting your ranks).  Create great, relevant content, and execute natural link building/content strategies to procure those valuable inbound links.

Cheers,

Brice