The most terrifying experience for a webmaster is when they see a sharp decline in their SEO rankings and all of their efforts have been for nothing. Are you one of those? Well, take a deep breath! You are not the only one.
Each website has experienced a diminishing in their rankings, or will do so in the near future. There is no way to stop it completely, but you can lower the repercussions.
There can be a range of explanations for a decrease in rankings. This article goes over both the easily recognized and not so apparent points. Here are 12 things that can hurt your SEO rankings:
1. Slow Website
The internet moves at a lightning pace. Google serves results in seconds, so should you. People who are using the internet anticipate that your website will take no longer than 2-3 seconds to open. There are various web-based applications you can use to measure the speed of your page. I use Google’s PageSpeedInsights. The outcome proposes actions that can be taken to enhance the velocity of your webpage and position your website higher in analysis.
A few things that affect page speed include
Large images: Aim to keep your images under 100kb. Employ Batch Picture Resizer to resize your images without compromising the quality.
If you can, store the video on your website rather than on platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. The incorporation of certain marketing techniques can be helpful, yet they tend to reduce your website’s speed.
Host provider: Your host could also be the problem. This mostly happens when you pay for cheap hosting. The deal looks great, but the services you get are subpar. Choose a high-quality host, particularly a managed hosting package if you have the money for it.
Inefficient HTML/CSS code could lower page speed. Google suggests utilizing HTMLMinifier to reduce the size of HTML, csso for shrinking down CSS and Closure Compiler to minify JavaScript.
2. Lack of Website Indexation
Not indexing and not providing easy access to your information results in decreased visibility on search engines.
How To Fix It?
Here are a few suggestions
Using a canonical tag can help prevent duplicate content on your website and make sure that visitors don’t get confused. Google doesn’t know which page to show. Be certain to correctly put in place a canonical tag to prevent a website from being penalized in terms of its ranking. It happens when you launch without checking the code. Crawling errors can happen when a code is installed incorrectly or a rel=canonical link is assigned to a 404 page.
Using a noindex tag on a page that you don’t want indexed means that Google won’t add it to its search engine results. Monitor your website pages in order to determine when a tag is no longer applicable.
Nofollow links do not result in any SEO advantage, however it is essential to employ them correctly or Google will punish you. Using a combination of Dofollow and Nofollow links can help to enhance your search engine ranking.
Experts generally suggest that 300-500 words constitutes the least amount of words. Nevertheless, web pages with more words enable Google to comprehend the page’s material easily. Make your vital pages longer and tweak them to get better search engine rankings.
In addition to flash elements, there are pages that are concealed in the Robots.Txt file.
3. Buying Links
Not long after I established my website, I got unexpected emails from SEO businesses providing to help me “purchase website traffic.” Certain websites are known for buying traffic and links in different forms. Here’s what I was given in terms of costs from someone proposing to provide me with backlinks to the websites I have identified. Will they conceal the links with a post if they choose to buy them? Is it really worth the cost to get backlinks in a post?
According to a survey, 22% of web administrators purchase links without making it public. Ignore those sites offering page one ranking. It could be effective, however, as Google develops their algorithmic system further, they will likely terminate its usage. Be patient. Composing excellent material requires effort and patience, but it will yield beneficial results in the long term. Create connections with websites and suggest writing a guest post instead of spending money on links.
4. Broken Links
People who come to your website after clicking a link anticipate that the content they desired will be there. A broken link hurts your website ranking. Visitors find it annoying and are unlikely to return.
How To Fix It?
Perform periodic reviews of the links that you send out and receive to make sure that none of them point to a page that is not functioning. Get Check My Links, a fantastic Chrome add-on that performs this job. Websites that are sizable and contain numerous pages should run scans using either ScreamingFrog or Ahrefs.
It is impossible for you to monitor and manage the content posted on other websites, however you can prevent any broken links from appearing on your own site. Rather than deleting the material, revise what is already at the same URL. This ensures you don’t have to delete content. Using a 301 redirect is a great solution, however, it can cause your website to run slowly.
5. Accepting Low-quality Guest Posts
Using guest posts is an effective method to acquire backlinks, however they must be done properly. If you are displaying material created by fresh authors on your website, guarantee that it is fresh and beneficial to the people viewing it. It is essential to distribute excellent material on a frequent basis, but it must be of superior quality.
6. Not Using Google Webmaster Tools
It’s impossible to run a successful website without Google. Google remains at the top of the hierarchy due to the fact that they offer free services. They genuinely want to help people succeed.
Webmaster tools were established to help webmasters improve communication. You have a plentiful amount of information available to you that will assist in improving your ranking, SEO and conversion.
Google Search Console furnishes information on essential Search Engine Optimization matters such as structural/structuring mistakes, crawl faults, indexation mistakes, and server difficulties.
Google Analytics can provide you with information about the origin of your website visitors. You are also provided with information on the amount of visitors to your website and how they interact with it.
I suggest that you hire a skilled digital or search advertiser who can assist you in making the most of webmaster tools.
7. Your Site Is Getting Lots Of Low-Quality Traffic
Poor quality traffic does not directly damage your website’s ranking, but it can have a more indirect effect. If you observe a sharp rise in low-grade traffic on your website, it could be that your site has obtained links from second-rate directories or unconnected websites through damaging search engine optimization (SEO) or payments for links. This could have a direct effect on the quantity of conversions, the time expended on each page of your site, and the bounce rate.
The combination of these elements will signal to Google that visitors are not pleased with your website, which could lead to a decrease in your rankings.
How To Identify Low-Quality Traffic?
You can utilize Finteza as a tool to take a look at the quality of traffic going to your website and spot individual IP addresses and websites that are sending poor traffic. Finteza can distinguish a maximum of 12 sorts of undesirable traffic, which consist of bots.
How To Fix It?
Once you have identified the websites that are directing poor quality traffic your way, make certain to delete your ads/links from them (even if they are “nofollow” links). Do not forget that these links can be flagged to be not tracked, and the only way to sort out these sites is by evaluating the quality of traffic.
8. Google Has Made A Recent Update To Its Ranking Algorithm
Changes to primary algorithms are an inevitable part of the whole search formula. Updates may occur several times in a single day without Google announcing them. It is probable that your website’s rankings may change as a result.
Not everytime a Google update results in a decrease in rankings it means that your website is malfunctioning. To make this understand, Google gave the following explanation in its blog:
A way of picturing the functioning of a center update is to think of it as if you generated a list of the top 100 flicks in 2015. In 2019 a few years later, update the list. It’s going to naturally change. There are now potential films that have never existed before that are contenders for being shown. Reevaluate some movies and decide they should have been ranked higher on the list.
The rankings of the list will be different over time, and films that had been highly placed may have lower rankings, but that doesn’t mean they are inadequate. There are other films which are more worthy of attention than the ones mentioned.
Core updates may not always lead to negative consequences, but they can imply that something is amiss with your website.
How To Confirm The Update?
Keep a watch on the official Google Webmasters Blog. Google generally let’s people know when a major change in its algorithm occurs, which may have an adverse effect on some websites. Moreover, they generally supply information to help you make the necessary adjustments to your site. If there is no statement or confirmation coming from Google, it is likely that any shift in positions within search engine results pages is a consequence of a core update.
When a core update occurs, the best course of action is to enhance the user experience. If people who use your website are pleased with it, then it is probable that Google will also be content.
What Should Be Your Next Step?
Set up a Google warning regarding alterations to Google and subscribe the esteemed SEO industry websites such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Watch. All of these blogs are valuable resources with advice related to SEO and motors for search.
9. You Have Violated Copyright Knowingly or Unknowingly
If you get a lot of genuine copyright infringement notifications, then your position in search engine results will go down. According to Google, websites receiving numerous requests to be taken down are likely to be ranked lower in search engine results. The revised ranking should make it much simpler for people to find reliable, excellent sources of content, such as a song from NPR’s music page, a show from Hulu, or recent music from Spotify.
If your website is connected to music or video streaming, you will probably experience this update, which is referred to by some as the Emanuel or Pirate update.
How To Identify Copyright Violation?
Go to the Google Transparency Report and type in the address of your website to see how many requests have been submitted concerning your website.
How To Fix It?
Take out the pages that have the potential of infringing upon copyright immediately, and be careful to not have any further copyright infringements in the future. Do not forget, unlawfully utilizing content in the form of written language, visuals, sound recordings, or films is against the law of copyright. It is wise to monitor the transparency record and enforce a rigorous content policy which prevents the posting of copyrighted material on your website.
10. There Is A Rise In Local Competition
An increase in the amount of businesses in the same area can have a detrimental impact on your website’s search engine optimization. If your bakery business is located in Dothan, and no other bakeries are in the area, then it should be relatively simple for you to remain at the top of the local search engine results. But if two more bakery businesses start up in Dothan, your competition will go up, causing your ranking to drop.
It’s possible that an older bakery in Dothan opened a Google My Business account and put money into online advertisements in order to beat out the competition in local search engine results.
How To Identify Competition?
You could search for your primary business keywords on Google, and determine who your competition is. You may take advantage of Semrush’s local rank tracker to identify new competitors in the online world, detect what keywords they have rank in, and monitor your ranks to know when a rival surpasses you.
What Should Be Your Next Step?
It is necessary to observe the strategies of any new rivals that have surfaced after utilizing a competitive analysis apparatus like SEMrush to determine any overlooked components of your SEO strategy. It is likely that you will have to allocate more funds for link building if you want to surpass your opponent that is gaining traction.
11. Your Site Is Not Mobile Friendly And Not Ready For Voice Search
A website that is not optimized for mobile devices may drop in the rankings as Google is always striving to enhance the user experience, and a laid out website that works on multiple screens is the initial step in doing so. Google changed over to a mobile-first index, which implies that it now assesses sites dependent on their versatile rendition of content rather than the desktop.
Mobile site and voice search go hand in hand. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile use, the likelihood is that it will plummet in the search engine rankings.
How To Fix It?
When you use the mobile-friendly test, Google will give you ideas on what you need to do to optimize your website. Have the programmer you work with implement the alterations or make your webpage fully adjustable to enable it to be seen by the public no matter what device they are on. You should also make sure your website is designed for voice search, particularly for keywords that are questions. This will help you get ready for the future.
12. You Have Recently Changed the Internal Linking Of Your Website
Any alteration to the way the pages are connected within the website might lead to a substantial decrease in search engine visibility. An illustration of this would be if you have 1000 internal links from the main page going to one of your page that is placed high in the search engine rankings. What would happen if the navigation link was eliminated and resulted in a loss of 1000 internal links? This drastic alteration could slowly lead to a decrease in the page’s rankings on search engine results.
How To Check And Fix It?
The most effective way to determine if any of your important pages have experienced a decline in the number of internal links pointing to them is to check Google Search Console. Log in to Search Console and navigate to Links.
At this location, the highest inbound linked pages to your website will become visible. Retrieve the information and compare if any of the recent 404’s have caused a decline in the amount of internal links.
Final Thoughts
Your SEO attempts are going to be in vain if you do not monitor the numerous aspects that can impede your website. One misstep could cause your site to forfeit its current rankings. Always adhere to SEO standards and consistently keep track of your website for potential issues that could damage your site later on.
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