Google Ranking Drop Have You Down?

In order to understand why you’re experiencing a Google ranking drop, it helps to understand what major factors can cause your site to go up or down.

1) Google’s Algorithm

It is solely and completely up to Google where sites rank and what they rank for on the Google Search Engine. Their algorithm takes thousands of factors into account when ranking sites for different search terms. Their algorithm can change daily with small tweaks but will often see big shake-ups every quarter as the bigger algorithms come out. The big quarterly algorithm updates can have huge effects on certain industries, sites, or geographic locations while having little to none on others.

2) Competition

When people see a Google ranking drop, they often assume something is wrong with their website. The common mistake is that they don’t consider that their competition might be doing something good or better with their own website. It’s common for small businesses to get their website built, put it online, and then not do much else.  Other websites are actively pursuing Google ranking increases by doing SEO themselves or hiring SEO companies to boost their rankings.

The more likely case is that you’re not experiencing a Google ranking drop, but that your compeition is experiencing a Goole ranking increase. This causes their websites to overtake your site in the rankings. So you’re probably not dropping – you’re probably being pushed down by other sites that are rising.

3) SEO Companies

What are do SEO companies? What do they do? What can you do?

SEO companies are specialized marketing companies. While digital marketing companies may provide SEO services as a part of their larger marketing campaigns, SEO companies specialize in SEO using a combination of three main strategies.

1. On-Site SEO – Creating fresh content “on” your site such as blog posts, new pages, etc.
2. Off-Site SEO – Creating content “off,” or away from, your site. Examples include “backlinks” (links from other sites to yours), creating directory listings (e.g. citations), standardizing the information available directory listings (making sure phone numbers and addresses match, etc).
3. Technical Audits, Fixes and Improvements – Tehcnically, this falls under “On-Site SEO,” but it’s more technical then writing and content creation. This task involves making sure the site code, load times, schema, meta data, etc are all formatted to Google’s standards and likings.

The first two strategies, On-site and Off-site, are typically the most important and have the most impact. They’re also things you can easily do yourself with little to no coding knowledge. There is a catch however – they’re extremely time consuming and labor intensive. If you have both the time and the interest, their on endless YouTube videos and blog posts that will show you how to do it. If you’re short on time or have no interest in DIY SEO, then you should hire an SEO company.

The third strategy, “Technical Fixes and Improvements” does often require developer knowledge. It can involve custom schema formatting, image compression, caching implementation, meta data, server adjustments, etc. The idea here is to standardize the site to meet Google’s technical expecations and improve overall technical performance and function. If you’ve ever seen a report or notice from Google Search Console or Google Pagespeed Insights, this is what we’re talking about.

Increase your Google Ranking

On-Site & Off-Site SEO

As a website management company, we don’t typically handle the first two items – On-Site and Off-Site SEO. I guess in a sense we handle a bit of On-Site optimization when it comes to a customer requesting that we add their latest blog posts; create a new service page; replace images on their site; improve the site’s design, etc. All these things help with Google rankings, user experience, and conversion. With that said, an SEO company typically implements On-Site and Off-Site SEO better because they are doing it with SEO and a larger strategy in mind. They’ve researched a bunch of different search terms and are doing things with order and purpose while both their progress and your Google Rankings.

While these auditing services can report a lot of issues, not all the issues cited are critical. And correcting the non-critical items will have little to no impact on SEO one way or the other. Fixing some of the bigger items can have a larger impact. And they will be a difference maker if all other things are equal between you and your competitor. However, keep in mind that a technically-sound site is no replacement for strong On-Site and Off-Site SEO. You really want to have all three in place, but the first two are going to make the biggest difference. Because of that, we typically recommend that you hire an SEO company if you’re concerned about a Google ranking drop or other marketing related issues.

If SEO is something you’re interested in pursuing, we work hand-in-hand with SEO companies that our customer’s hire. As your web team, we also act as a fiduciary between you and your marketing company. If you already have an SEO company to help with these tasks, we’re happy to work with them. If you don’t have an SEO company or digital marketing firm, we’re happy to make some recommendations.