I often get asked, ‘hey Austine, how do I figure out why my rankings have dropped?’
This simple question has such complexities to it.
After all, there are many things that affect a site’s rankings. Where do you begin?
Even if you’re able to categorise your site issues into On-Page, Off-Page and Technical, how do you go about identifying the specific issues that have caused you site’s rankings to drop?
Heck, let’s say you’ve narrowed all the issues to 3 specific ones. How do you know which fixes will sort out your rankings and get you back to parity, and beyond?
Let’s get into this!
Broadly speaking, there are 3 types of events that will have an impact on your site’s organic performance.
Event Type 1: A website change
Event Type 2: Competitors activities
Event Type 3: An algorithm change
Ranking drops will be caused by one or more of these events.
Now, when I say event, I’m referring to an action or a series of actions that are big enough to create change in your organic search presence.
So, let’s go through each one.
Event Type 1: A website change
A website change is in your control.
This will be something you do on your website to impact your search visibility.
This change will hopefully be for the betterment of your site.
So, you create new content on your site, for example.
Or, you improve the crawlability of your site – that’s a big one, right? There are several projects that can come from this objective alone.
Whether you work on technical SEO, on-page or even off-page optimisation, it’s all within your direct control. You carry out things on your website, and in the case of off-page SEO, for your website, all for the objective of improving the site.
Conversely, there are things that can happen on your site that may have a negative impact.
A common one is a page being deleted rather than redirected.
Or, perhaps, a new page is created on the site that causes an internal conflict with another page.
There are many things on your site that creates an event, which impacts your site’s organic performance.
All within your control!
The second type of event that can impact your site’s organic performance is, for the most part, out of your control.
Event Type 2: Competitors activities
This is where the actions a competitor makes impacts their website rankings, as well as yours.
So for example, a competitor who previously did not have any keywords targeted across their site, addresses this issue.
It leads to a couple of their pages rising in rankings for their targeted keywords.
This, in turn, leads to a couple of your pages dropping in rankings, for the same set of keywords.
Now, this type of event is usually on an even playing field.
What I mean by this is, you have the same influence on your competitors as they do on you.
I.e. by them running a campaign that benefits their website, you can do a similar thing to benefit your website. This is why awareness of your competitors’ activities is a worthwhile investment.
Now, I emphasised ‘usually’ when I said this type of event is on an even playing field.
Do you know why this is not always the case?
When your competitors are invested in SEO, and you are not, do you see how they can easily optimise their website and influence your organic search visibility to shrink as theirs improve? Think about it!
Event Type 3: An algorithm change
The third type of event is an algorithm change, or update!
Think BERT, RankBrain, Broad Core Algorithm Update.
Any type of algorithm change or update, whether big or small, global or local, falls within this category.
This type of an event, can, and often, will impact your organic search performance.
But let me say, it is not going to be an attack on your website.
Algorithm changes, let’s say from Google, for example, will be in accordance with their business objective.
It is their responsibility to have their SERPs the way they want it.
It is your responsibility to have your website in accordance to their best practice so they consider your site as worthy to be presented to their customers – searchers, those you wish to attain.
So, being aware of these 3 major events, can help you decipher why your rankings have dropped.
You can use this as a starting point to have questions focused on the root cause of your rankings drop.
Have you made any changes to your site in the past week that would have affected your rankings?
If the answer is no, you can consider your main competitors.
Have your competitors increased in rankings for keywords you’ve dropped for?
If this answer is no, you can look into industry discussion.
Has there been an algorithm change or update in the past few days?
For algorithm changes/updates, you can be sure there’ll be discussion online about the type of event.
You only need to carry out a quick search and you’ll find news of an algorithm change/update.
Whatever the event, you’ll want to identify it so you can take focused actions to improve your site’s visibility.
Let’s say you discover you’re no longer ranking for…5 keywords, which were all ranking in the top 5 positions.
You notice they were similar keywords, and see they were for the same page.
You go to visit the page on your website, and you land on a 404 error page.
Well, this is a site issue. The keywords are no longer ranking because the page is no longer live on the site. This is the first type of event, which you’re in control of.
Now, let’s tweak the scenario a little and make it more complicated.
Instead of the 5 keywords no longer ranking, let’s say they’ve all dropped 2 positions.
Now, this is a little different. It’s not such a drastic change as the previous example. It’s subtle, yet noticeable.
How do you go about finding out the cause of this change?
Use the same approach!
Check if there’s been a change on the page? Perhaps a content update.
Have a look at the sites higher in the SERPs. You’ll need to decipher if they have made any changes to warrant their ranking to increase.
Additionally, carry out quick research to find out if there has been an algorithm update. If this is the cause, you’ll need to deep dive into the algorithm update in order to pivot so your website regains visibility.
Summary
These are just some of the questions SEOs have to answer on a daily basis, especially when trying to figure out why rankings have dropped.
There’s no start point to SEO, and certainly no end point.
SEO is wide and complex. Figuring out why your rankings have dropped can leave you chasing after your tail.
This is why you want to ensure you have a method to your approach.
This way, you’ll have a clear objective that’s focused on performing for the business, rather than carrying out SEO for its own purpose.
When your rankings change, you don’t get an email or notification from the search engines – no, no!
Your rankings change! You’re left to figure out what caused it.
By having these 3 major events in mind, you can use it as a starting point to identify why your rankings change.
