The Most Important Reasons Why Your Website Rankings Are not Stable

In the world of SEO, every little detail counts. If a website experiences a drop in traffic, then it can expect its rankings to lower, bringing down the number of leads and subsequent conversions as well. Unstable website search rankings should be avoided at all costs because they bring in the element of unpredictability into your business.

If you cannot predict the sales for the next fiscal quarter, then your brand’s growth is effectively thwarted. In your website rankings are not stable, then you need to look into the reasons why this is so and try to find possible solutions to the problem.

Getting outranked by the competition

If you are losing the online race for leads, it is because other websites are getting your leads. The best explanation behind your failure to generate traffic is that you have been outranked and outplayed by your competitors. In order to fight back, start analyzing in-depth the quality of the content they are uploading and revise their marketing strategy. In the end, people will visit your website because of its quality but it is wise to keep one eye open and constantly monitor what your competitors are doing.

Pages slow to load

If you’re browsing the Internet and click a page that takes longer than a whole minute to load, would you wait that long? You probably wouldn’t and neither will your target consumers. Fast-loading pages have become the industry’s standard long ago so users expect the faster loading time as possible. Pages that take forever to load will increase the bounce-back rate for your website, forcing it to sink ever lower in Google search rankings.

Experiencing lost links

A website that hasn’t been updated in a while can lose links over time. Ideally, check if all the links on your website are valid every 90 days or so. The most severe loss of links that results in the greatest drop in rankings are corrupt internal links.

If you decide to remove a link intentionally, then Google can presume that such links were not natural, to begin with, flagging your page and penalizing you for such behavior. Furthermore, external links are often lost because the website in question had undergone an update so you’ll have to ask the site owner to restore them for you.

Manual actions that cause problems

Having mentioned Google, Australian regulators have had a fair number of disputes over the issue of privacy with the California based tech giant. However, Google will penalize your website for not sticking to their guidelines. Such penalties are given out automatically and manually but are most frequently the result of something you did manually to your website. If your website is still ranking high on Bing or Yahoo but Google is still keeping you low, then give the Google Search Console a look.

The geolocation is a factor

As you already know, Google’s homepage is not the same in all countries and neither are the search results.  Google uses the geolocation of the device a person is using to generate search results and modifies the results accordingly. If your users are based in the Sydney area, for example, then ranking number one in Sydney SEO should be a top priority.

This is the main reason why you should do your website’s optimization according to the geographical region your business is located in. If you run a brick and mortar business, then the location becomes the deciding factor in ranking higher. Who needs the number one rank in Cambodia, when you operate your business from Australia!

Faulty internal navigation

We have already discussed the severity of any lost internal links but if the entire internal navigation system goes horribly wrong. Once visitors open your site, it is up to clear and to the point internal navigation to guide them toward the info they are searching for. The process in question should not involve too much clicking, as you are likely to lose visitors, decreasing the number of leads and increasing the bounce rate.

Content that is buried deep within the internal structure of your website is highly unlikely to be crawled by search engines. If users cannot reach the interesting bits of content available on your website, then expect a drop in total visits to the website. Such a decrease in traffic is a clear indicator that you need to refresh your internal link strategy by simplifying navigation and putting forward the best quality content you have on your website. 

Google’s ever-changing algorithms 

One of the secrets behind Google’s success as a global search engine is the fact that they have constantly been updating their strategies and the way results are generated. This has led to numerous changes in search algorithms, which has hurt many businesses who have failed to adapt to the new algorithms.

One of the ways companies take a hit is by dropping significantly in Google rankings, although they had few SEO issues prior to the change. The best way to adapt to the ever-changing algorithms is to decrease the dependency on Google. By using cross-channel marketing and traffic strategy that incorporates social media, you are creating alternative channels through which users can find your website.

A server overload

Sometimes too much traffic can actually mean a bad thing. There is nothing that can lower your rankings as a server crash. Any sudden surge in traffic means that the server you are using is in danger of overloading and subsequently crashing. All the while it is down, you will receive zero traffic, causing your rankings to plummet. In order to prevent this scenario from occurring, try to avoid shared serves because you will depend on others’ traffic that might skyrocket any given minute.

These were just the 8 most common reasons why your website rankings are not stable. In order to facilitate your business’ growth, create an SEO strategy that promises an increase in traffic through improved rankings.