As promised in my post Reasons for Sudden Plunge in Blog Traffic I will be discussing the possible reasons for a sudden drop in search rank.
I already wrote about this in the past but concentrated on FALSE ALARMS. However, what do you do when you find out that your search rank has indeed dropped? Just like finding out the reason for a decrease in traffic, the first thing you need to do is find out WHY.
Major reasons could be:
1. spam – If you are a splog then you have most likely been discovered. However, if your blog is legit then you need to check whether you’ve been hacked and spammed. If this is the case IMMEDIATELY take the steps to remove the spam and whatever malware the hacker might have installed in your blog. Report the incident to Google and other search engines and ask to be included in the index again (if you have been removed). They do know these things happen and actually manually right the wrongs when the case is justified.
2. competition – Check out which the competition that has been jumped you. There is a reason why your competition places better than you do in search results pages. Have they made improvements in their format, content and/or offerings? Does it look like they’re finally employing sound SEO? How does your blog compare to theirs? Try to figure out what’s working for them then make the necessary adjustments. Note though that I do not believe in reactionary techniques. It’s better to be better than your competition on the get go rather than keep on trying to chase after their success.
3. lack of SEO – Are you doing your own SEO? Do you even do SEO? If not then I have news for you: YOU NEED SEO. In this competitive atmosphere content is still king but without SEO no one will get to watch the king’s parade.
Originally posted on January 25, 2010 @ 3:11 pm
