Keyword Ranking Hiccups Come and Ranking Hiccups Go

Should You Sit Tight … or Start to Tweak Your Web Page?

I recently made another post in this series about how I noticed that some top ranking keywords, that have been quite stable for a long time, suddenly were ranking horribly. I could only deduce that a brief 36-hour glitch in the Google algorithms were affecting the website in question, The-Artistic-Garden.com.

I also said that I wasn’t going to frantically start to tweak content, or change meta tags or anything at that time. It is better in situations like this to take a deep breath, sit back for a bit and see if things get back to normal.

Well … guess what? My Google rankings did settle right back to where they’ve always been in about 24-hours after I wrote that post! Those important keywords are now right back up where they belong.

What you can learn from this is, is that all of us can have rankings flip-flop and dance around at times. It is something you and I can’t be immune to. I now know that my first hunch about what was causing the sudden drop was correct.

See? There was absolutely NO need to tweak or change anything! Think of all the wasted time, and possibly harm I might have caused to my ranking positions, had I started to try and figure out what to change to get those web pages of content ranking back up in Google’s top-ten.

Now … had I seen after two weeks or so that the keyword phrases in question were still suffering, then and only then would I have slowly and methodically looked at all the angles of what might have caused it before I started making changes to the web page content and tags.

How’s your website’s ranking positions? How long have you been online, yet still aren’t seeing a nice flow of targeted traffic to your site?

Did you know I gladly offer a Complimentary 30-minute Consultation? I’d be happy to take a quick-look overview of your site and give you my professional opinion of what might be causing you problems. I look forward to assisting you!

Search Engine Rankings Can Go Up … And They Can Go Down

Rankings … It’s All Up To Google’s Ranking Algorithms

It’s been almost a month since I posted about rankings on my own sites, and after taking a look at some of the keyword phrases I’ve previously shared with you here, I am not jumping up and down for joy as to how there appears to be a little slippage going on in my Google rankings for a few of the keyword phrases used on one of my sites – The-Artistic-Garden.com. Grrrr …

But I have to practice what I preach to my clients about ranking fluctuations, and so I won’t really get alarmed about this current situation. I’ve been through this a few times over the past few years, and I will go through the “Google dance” many more times in years to come. It’s all part of the SEO ranking “game” (it’s really not a game, of course, but sometimes it feels like it is!).

If Top Rankings Fluctuate … Do You Sit Tight or Start to Tweak Content, Your Tags, or What?

This is the million dollar question: “To Tweak or Sit Tight?” through Google’s, or any other search engine’s re-determination, and lowering of your keyword ranking positions. This is not a cut and dry question to answer. There can be one or more factors affecting a drop.

Very simply put, the major reasons seem to be:

• A Change in the Search Engine Ranking Algorithm: you and I have no control over this situation!
• Loss of PageRank/Link Popularity: did one or more high ranking sites yank a link pointing to your site off their site? (as but one example)
• Duplicate Content: did you add a new page(s) that too closely mirrors the content in an existng page for the keyword phrase that has dropped?
• A Penalty Has Been Imposed Due to an Abuse of One Sort or Another: black-hat SEO techniqes; keyword stuffing; invisible keyword focused text; link stuffing; to name a few.
• Broken Links on a Key Navigation Page: you need to always make sure internal and out-pointing links are all in working order on all the pages on your site.
• Server Problems: too much downtime which would keep the spiders from being able to enter your site.
• Or … the competition is finally beginning to out-rank you! (Oh-oh!)

To be honest, I don’t think I’m dealing with any of the above reasons. However … I do think I might know what the trouble is. I think that my ranking drops are due to a bit of erratic site accessiblity that really wasn’t a server problem, nor was it due to a goof-up on my part. Let’s just say there was a bit of a bumpy ride for about 48 hours a few days back, and I think that might be the reason.

But now, on the technical side of things, all has returned to normal for The-Artistic-Garden.com and I will patiently sit back and see what happens. In this situation, I am NOT going to start frantically trying to rewrite Title tags or Description tags for the webpages and keyword phrases in question.

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to reword, or reposition the keyword phrase in the Title tag and/or meta tags, and even to go back into the page of content and decide if you need to improve upon it in some way. Yes … sometimes competing websites for various reasons just start to stomp on your top rankings and thusly you may have to do a little freshening up of things in an SEO sense.

In addition, it may not just be keyword usage. You may have slipped due to other sites gaining more quality in-pointing links; they’ve added more quality pages of content; etc. Like I said, there are many different angles to consider when determining what is best to do if keyword rankings start to fluctuate.

But for now, I’m sitting back, taking a deep breath, and will wait a bit to see if my rankings go back to where they were before.

Why Solid Attention To Basic On-Page Optimization Works

In previous posts about how I have achieved top organic rankings for various important keyword phrases on my websites, I showed some local search results for a couple of pretty specific long-tail phrases relating to my SEO consulting rankings.

So today, I thought I’d show you that I am doing very nicely with a top #1 and #2 organic ranking for a more specific keyword phrase that targets the state in which I reside – Tennessee.

Here’s a screen shot taken today (July 10, 2008) for the listing ”seo consultant Tennessee”  that I’ve utilized on my website www.SEO-Innovation.com:

I’m proud of these top-spot rankings! I mean … the ranking results are for all the SEO consultants in Tennessee. You know, there are a number of pretty successful SEO consultants in this state that have websites that been around a lot longer than mine … yet I’m ranking at the top.

 

 

 

How Did I Achieve Top Organic Google Rankings?

If you’re learning about the ins and outs of how to properly tend to on-page optimization for your website or blog, you probably know that there are a number of factors that Google takes into consideration when determining which site is #1, #2, #3 and so on. Though careful attention to properly optimizing the Title tag , Description meta tag and knowing how to utilize your keyword phrase through-out the content is very important, there are other factors that Google takes into consideration, too.

These all important factors that add up to everyone’s Google rankings can be the following, but not limited to:

• Keyword phrase targeted in the Title tag
• Keyword phrase targeted in the Description meta tag
• Keyword phrase targeted in the page title and coded H1 or H2
• Content focused specifically on the targeted keyword phrase and keyword phrase (and appropriate modifiers) is used in the content
• Cleanly coded (robot crawlable) website
• Inbound links (relevant to your site and quantity of relevant links)
• Inbound link anchor text
• Age of your domain
• Many lesser factors

So back to why I believe I am ranking well above all the other SEO consultant’s sites here in Tennessee. Well … evidently I’ve done a very good job of on-page optimization, number one. Next, though my website is not an “older” site than some of the other Tennessee SEO consultants’ sites, when all the factors are added up, Google says “congratulations, SEO-Innovation.com … your ranking factors all add up to being extremely relevant for the queried search term and so, you’re maintaining the #1 and #2 positions!”

It’s All Up to Google’s Search Engine Ranking Algorithms

If I tell you it is a bit of a mystery to me as to why I have beat out a few of my competitors (who I’ll leave nameless), I am being honest with you. I know I do a darn good job when it comes to organic optimization, but they seem to, also. But it really is a crap-shoot quite often in more competitive markets.

Why one site may rank above the other can often be difficult to exactly nail on the head! You truly have to dig down into all the above mentioned factors for each website you rank higher than, or lower than, to try to ascertain the hows and whys.

But suffice it to say, that I practice what I preach … and what I teach. And with that screenshot, I can show you clear evidence that what I do when hired by a client works, because it also works for me!

If you’d like to learn how to implement ethical SEO techniques on your website or blog, please download a copy of my free eBook “The SEO Edge”.

I share many of my techniques to optimize a site for high rankings! If it works for me … it’ll work for you, too!