A drop in the rankings has been an all too common occurrence during the last twelve months. With Penguin and Panda a distant, but painful memory for some, there are still sites out there suffering what at the time seems like inexplicable drops in the rankings. Of course, there’s almost always a very good reason for this, and the one thing we can say about Google at the moment is that it is nothing if it is not transparent. The bad news for websites which have not been on the most straight and narrow of paths is that if they haven’t been pegged back yet, they surely will be soon, but the good news is that Google always leaves the door open for a return to former glories – providing medicine is taken! So if you’ve suffered – what do you do?
The first thing is see if there’s a very easy way back. Google have introduced some steps that can be taken by webmasters that will allow them to right the wrongs. The link disavow tool is excellent for signalling to Google that you wish for certain links not to count towards your magic SEO mark! It’s very rarely the case that a rival company has deliberately linked to your site to cause a drop in the rankings for you, but because it is technically possible, Google is happy to provide an opportunity for webmasters to say something along the lines of ‘It wasn’t me, I’m sorry!’
You will also find that you have options such as re inclusion requests, and of course, starting to use4 webmaster tools if you haven’t been doing so will help you immediately.
There’s still one way that is better than all the rest though, if you want to get back into Google’s good books and more importantly, regain your previous good rankings. The answer, of course, is high quality content. Just take a look at your site, how it looks and the quality of your written content. The chances are, if you think it looks crappy, so will Google. They want it to look good, they want it to be easy for your market to digest it, they want it to be relevant to the people it ought to be relevant to and they want it to engage people!
If you start to make this happen, you will be rewarded! It really isn’t rocket science. Get rid of any nothing pages. Create some fresh content, then create some more. Get some great info graphics up on your site, and use video to make your page comer to life. More often than not, by following your nose and doing what you think is probably the right thing, will lead you to doing the right thing. If in doubt, make it good, and if you don’t think you can, then find someone to do it for you. We now live in an age where search engines are so capable. They’ll find poor content and be rid of it. Be good and stay seen, it’s as simple as that!
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