Tag: website updates

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Many reasons can lead to a drop in a site’s search rankings and traffic, with everything from technical on-site issues to off-site SEO issues and other external factors. Whether you’re currently experiencing an issue or you want to prevent it from happening in the near future, we recommend reading this blog and using it as a checklist for diagnosis. That way when you’re ready to invest in a search engine optimization service, you will see the value and work that goes into getting your website noticed!

On-site issues that cause rankings to fall 

The way your page is optimized has a huge impact on its ability to rank well. The following on-page ranking factors can affect your website’s search: 

• Your site needs updating: It’s crucial to keep your website up-to-date to remain competitive in your industry. Updates could include fresh content, revised backlinks, or even web development and optimization efforts. 
• Lack of content: On the whole, a shortage of content provides very little value to your readers, especially if you’re lacking to utilize the power of pages and blogging to assist your SEO strategy. 
• Removal of traffic-driving content: While it makes sense to remove duplicate and irrelevant content from your website, be sure that you don’t remove anything that is currently driving traffic. It’s a better use of your time to take care of technical SEO, such as which pages aren’t receiving traffic, rather than thinning out your more masterful pieces. 
• You’ve recently updated your website: A new website design is usually quite good for your web traffic. However, its crawlability and indexability will face issues if you don’t remember to perform redirects. 

Off-site issues that cause rankings to fall

The following off-site ranking factors can affect your website’s search: 

• Links have been removed from sites: Check to make sure you haven’t dropped any links if your traffic starts to slow down. Webmasters often clean up their links and analyzing these removals will help you to prevent a severe drop in your ranking. 
• A site linking to you went down: If a website goes down permanently, the traffic you received from that site is likely lost. Truth be told, there’s no way for you to prevent or protect yourself from this happening. You just need to be on top of replacing that site with another one if it ever comes up. 
• Sites linking to you have a drop in their traffic: If the site that has your links is penalized or removed from Google’s index, you will receive a loss in your traffic as a result. This is why ongoing link acquisition is crucial! 

How do you go about tackling any or all of the above SEO-related issues?

Before your company can consider hiring a professional to carry out a search engine optimization service, it’s important to know what it includes. Why not start your venture by delving into the custom strategy offered by Trek Marketing, which will be laid out for you upon completion of your free SEO audit?

External changes that impact your site beyond your control

There is an assortment of other external factors that could impact your search rankings and traffic, including:

• Featured or rich snippet changes: If you have a snippet driving traffic, your traffic will drop significantly overnight if the SERP changes and no longer displays that snippet. 
• Audience search behaviour changes: Your target audience changes over time, which is often a result of consumers keeping up with trending products and services. Aside from whatever is current, be prepared to switch up your SEO strategy for seasonal changes as well. 
• Errors on the server side: Issues with servers not being able to properly serve a website puts your search ranking in trouble. Google won’t recommend your website as the answer if it’s having difficulty for a significant length of time accessing your website. 

Do you know of other factors related to SEO that directly affect your search rankings and traffic? Drop them below to start a discussion.