What to do When Your Google Rankings Drop
Welcome back to the Foremost Media Marketing Chat Podcast! In this episode we had a chat about algorithm volatility, drops in rankings, and strategies for investigating, diagnosing, and fixing these issues. What should you do when you start to lose the Google rankings you once had? We're here to help.
Solutions for Drops in Rankings
Join Evan Facinger and Jon Ballard in this timely episode as they unravel the mysteries behind sudden drops in Google rankings. From analyzing data in your various SEO tools to keeping up with your competition, we provide actionable insights to revive your SEO game. Learn about the crucial role of fresh content, backlinks, and the balance between organic SEO and pay-per-click advertising.
Time Stamps:
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:22 Use tools to dive into the data
- 2:43 Why rankings drop
- 4:52 Are your competitors outranking you?
- 6:18 The importance of backlinks
- 8:14 Content made with the right intentions
- 9:53 Pay-Per-Click & Infinite scroll
- 12:28 Farewell and outro
Find more marketing insights and show notes here
Transcript:
Evan Facinger:
Do some of that competitor analysis because you're never operating in a silo.
Evan Facinger:
You know there's always people trying to take the rankings that you have. So, if you aren't doing anything to keep them, you gotta take a look and see why you're losing them.
Evan Facinger:
Hey everyone! Welcome to the foremost media marketing chat where we talk about various digital marketing topics. I'm Evan Facinger, joined with Jon Ballard from foremost media.
Jon Ballard:
Hey, Evan, how are you? It's been a hot minute since we've done this. I'm excited to get back to it.
Evan Facinger:
I am, too. I'm hoping that you know we can shake off all the rust, if you will, from the lack of recent recording. But I'm excited to talk. And I do like the topic that we have today, because it's timely. It's always timely. You know, we wanted to chat about things you can do if you start to notice your rankings dropping in Google specifically, your search engine rankings around keywords.
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, I think it's very timely. You know, we manage a lot of SEO accounts, and we've seen some volatility here lately, sometimes up, sometimes down. You know, a lot of people get pretty nervous when their money making keywords drop off. And so let's talk about what might cause that first, Evan. What's your thoughts and give us some scenarios on what might cause your rankings to suddenly drop.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, the first thing I always like to do when you start to notice something like that is to dive in deeper to the data. Right? You wanna confirm that you are seeing drops. When you rely on tools, sometimes it's good to check the other tools. So if you have SEMrush, or you're using Uber Suggest, or another tool like that, it's good to compare a little bit with those different tools. Also, I like to check Google Search Console. That's gonna give you a wealth of information in there and the data is gonna be able to help you identify what you're looking at. Are you looking at a specific keyword or keywords that are dropping or is it more of a widespread across the board, your entire website is dropping in traffic? That information there gives you a good starting point to figure out what you should do next.
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, search console will also tell you if you know there's like a manual penalty in place, or something which is what everybody kind of immediately goes to. But that's usually not the case. It's really rare to see that unless you've done something really spammy. So I agree, Search Console is a great place to start. You know, looking at your tools. Let's let's back up a little bit. What could cause a drop in rankings? What do you see? Typically, is it just an algorithm shift?
Evan Facinger:
Well, and that depends a little bit on what type of drop you're looking at. Across the board a lot of times, that is, gonna be more of an algorithm or a manual penalty like you were saying. Typically, those don't come as surprises anymore. You generally know that you're maybe pushing the envelope a little bit, all right, or you know, I guess maybe you got unlucky and got an SEO agency that does a little bit too much of that and get the manual penalty that way. If you start to notice that it's just slowly starting to lose some of your rankings. They're just down month over month, and you're not really getting back in place and there hasn't been a recent algorithm update even though you know, there usually are algorithm updates pretty recently, that can a lot of times, you know, be attributed to a number of different things to take a look at. If you have that slow decay sometimes you just, you know, you need to update your content. Yeah, maybe it's not as good as it used to be. Maybe it's getting a little stale. You know, Google likes fresh content. So just even going in there, adding more relevant information, updating it, that can sometimes be, you know what's necessary at that point.
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, the other thing I've seen a lot, kind of my go to checklist, is like you said, Search Console. I go check and make sure there's no manual penalties or see what they're reporting, you know, for errors. There's a lot of information on technical SEO, and there's slow pages, pages not found. Typically, if it's a kind of a drastic drop across the board a lot of times I'll go look at what's going on with the site, technically. I'll run like an SEMrush site audit to see if it's slow. Maybe the site was even down or it's just become overwhelmed. We got more traffic there than the server can handle. So there's a lot of things that can kinda just slow user experience down. In turn, Google tends to kind of deflate your rankings a little bit. So you know, if it's not a technical penalty, or like a technical SEO problem, or a speed problem, or maybe a mobile responsive problem, then I'll kind of move on to- you know, because those are quick and easy to eliminate, then I'll move on to more like fresh content and what can we do, content wise.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, and also just taking a look at what is taking over for the rankings, too. So if you've, you know, got past any technical- Right? Google's still crawling it, Google's still indexing it, there's no manual actions. Then you can start to take a look at why are you losing rankings. Because is a competitor or competitors- are they doing more SEO work? Right? Are they producing better content? You know, did they update their content? Maybe adding, You know, some things that Google likes to see whether it's videos, more images, better user experience on their site. Do some of that competitor analysis because you're never operating in a silo. You know there's always people trying to take the rankings that you have, so if you aren't doing anything to keep them you gotta take a look and see why you're losing them. You know it could be as simple as just evaluating what your internal linking strategy is. Do you have the supporting content around that topic that you're linking to that? Sort of that pillar content strategy, or the hub, and spoke, you know, whichever what you wanna really emphasize for it, you know. How do you have all of those connected? That can make a big difference too.
Jon Ballard:
And I think just having a regular content strategy on tap every month, adding new content and continue to build shows Google that you're active as well, and can help avoid some of those dips in rankings.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, the other thing, too, are backlinks, you know. If you aren't working on building them, trying to get more links to your site, especially more relevant links, then if your competitors are producing content that's more fresh, better, and they're getting more links to their sites, that can be the difference maker too or why you're they're starting to favor- Google is starting to favor their article over yours.
Jon Ballard:
Let's talk a little bit about like backlinks, and more in depth. I mean, what's a good backlink and I mean social? Are you encouraging people these days to keep posting on social for backlinking purposes? Or what's your mindset on backlinks?
Evan Facinger:
Well, I think it's important to post on social. I think that that can generate awareness on the article, but I don't really approach it from a backlink perspective as much and because you know it's not so much the post on their accounting is the backlink to the article. However, if you generate awareness and more people link to it, then you can generate backlinks that way. There's a few different approaches for the backlinks and every software has their own classification, whether it's domain authority, which is a pretty popular one or the DR. Right? It depends on which tool you're using and you have to take that information with a grain of salt, because it's not like Google is awarding those scores to those sites, but it's good to at least have a benchmark to understand how strong of the domain it is, and that allows you to understand is "how valuable is this backlink?" and not everybody's backlinks are as strong as others. If you get one from a high authoritative site, then that's gonna count more to your site versus just a blog that you spun up to try to link over to your site.
Jon Ballard:
One thing I've seen quite often is like we'll do a lot of new content or make a lot of changes to the site with the anticipation of getting better rankings and all of a sudden we see drops in rankings. But what we've kind of discovered over the years is that's kind of sometimes typical, if you've made a lot of changes to the site. Google doesn't really understand the site anymore and says "Well, someone's changed here." they may devalue your rankings temporarily, will they kind of reindex and deep crawl that site and then come back, and a lot of times we see those rankings come back better if we've done it with the right intentions. We've experienced that in the past.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, and I think the key there is the right intentions. Sometimes, you see SEO content. Right? And you can tell that it's written just for SEO purposes. And it's not that that was ever a good thing to do when I feel like Google's getting smarter at being able to identify that. And the recent algorithm, you know, update with the Helpful Content Update that was a big push, you know, trying to find helpful, useful, content versus just content written for SEO purposes. I think you're always trying to walk that line of making sure it's easy to identify with Google that you are still clearly using the keywords. Right? You still have an SEO focus on there but you're thinking about the user, too and how can you make sure that you're giving the good information for them, and that it's useful information for them so that it's gonna rank. And you know, if you do a lot at once, then you just have to make sure that you're doing it strategically and adding it, and then take some time. You can't expect it just to be- flipped a switch just because you added it or posted it, that it's going to be ranking instantly for it. It takes time to build up- to gain that authority to have it be recognized?
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, that's a good point. Patience is a key, and then SEO or organic SEO long term. One of the things I think that people should be doing in addition to organic SEO is pay-per-click, with Google's new infinite scroll and some of that, you're seeing sponsored ads through all the search results now, and it's clear that they're trying to drive traffic and revenue to that. But it is an opportunity. I mean, I think people that are just not doing pay-per-click should maybe re-look at it, especially since some of the changes have come out with how the search results are displayed in return.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, and that's not going to change. I mean you think about how large of a company Google is right, how much revenue it produces. Google ads is still the cash cow. That's where they're making their money for it, and they need advertisers, and they need advertisers to want to spend money with them, and they need people to click on those ads for all of that, to continue. So it's, gonna increase, if anything, the importance of paid advertising and how they're intermixing them within those search results, to try to drive clicks to the ads. And there are a lot of studies that show having- even if you're ranking for that term highly and also, you're paying for an ad, you generally have a much higher click through rate on both. Right? So it's not really necessarily that you're cannibalizing, or, you know, paying for something that you could have gotten for free in terms of the click. Having multiple taking up more search, more space on the search engine result page, basically has always shown that it's gonna increase the amount of clicks that you get.
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, especially if we're really seeing, like the search results changing when it's related to shopping like a Google product that can show up in shopping fees. Google really has dominated the top of the search results with snippets from those from Google Shopping or Google Merchant. Now, you know, I think a lot of the best ways to get there is just pay the fee.
Evan Facinger:
Yeah, that's a good point.
Jon Ballard:
And you know, I guess the nice thing about pay-per-click as well as you know, it's not as vulnerable to these ups and downs and the whims of Google. As long as they pay them they'll keep on top. So it's a little bit more straightforward. But you know I think a good strategy is long term, still best bang for your buck, is organic SEO. Right? People test that. It converts better. You're not paying for it long term. But you know, supplement that with pay-per-click, in my opinion.
Evan Facinger:
For sure, it's not an either or, it should be both and that's true with a lot of marketing.
Jon Ballard:
Yeah, for sure. Well, nice and short to the point today, you want anything else you want to get into? Or should we call it a day?
Evan Facinger:
I say, we call it a day. There're gonna be more topics coming. So make sure that everybody likes and subscribes and you know we'll keep producing them.
Jon Ballard:
That was good. Thanks, Evan.
Evan Facinger:
Thanks, Jon.
Zach Baierl:
Thanks for listening to the Foremost Media Marketing Chat Podcast! If you want to stay on top of your marketing game, make sure to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more episodes, show transcripts, and marketing insights go to foremostmedia.com.
Podcast Summary: Navigating a Drop in Google Rankings
In Episode 17 of our series, "What to Do When Your Google Rankings Drop," we dive deep into the unnerving scenario many businesses face: a sudden decrease in search engine visibility. Our experts break down the potential causes of these ranking drops and offer actionable advice to diagnose and address the underlying issues.
Key Takeaways:
Understanding Algorithm Updates: Learn how Google's frequent algorithm updates can affect your site's rankings and the importance of staying informed about these changes.
Website Health Checks: Discover the critical role of conducting regular website audits to identify technical issues, such as broken links or slow loading times, that could harm your rankings. Learn More About Our SEO Audit Services
Content Quality: We emphasize the importance of high-quality, relevant content and how it significantly influences your position in search results.
User Experience (UX): Understand why Google values user experience and how factors like mobile-friendliness and site navigation play a crucial role in your site’s ranking.
Backlink Profile: Gain insights into the impact of your backlink profile on your rankings and how to maintain a healthy portfolio of backlinks.
Immediate Steps to Take: The episode outlines immediate steps you can take to begin addressing a drop in rankings, including a review of your SEO strategy and engaging with SEO professionals if needed.
Our experts also highlight the importance of patience and consistency in SEO efforts. Recovering from a drop in Google rankings is not instantaneous, and strategic, well-informed actions are key to regaining and maintaining your site’s visibility.
For anyone looking to understand the dynamics of Google rankings and how to respond effectively to changes, this episode offers invaluable insights and strategies. Whether you’re a business owner, a marketing professional, or just keen on SEO, "What to Do When Your Google Rankings Drop" provides the guidance you need to navigate these challenges successfully.
Listen to the full episode for a comprehensive understanding of how to tackle drops in Google rankings and ensure your website remains competitive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.