Returning To SEO? Make Some Changes To Regain Your Lost Glory!
A few months ago, we were contacted by a soon-to-be client. The email read:
“Our site has been operational since 2007. The traffic growth was pretty satisfactory up to 2014. We even enjoyed a million page views every month, and probably got too comfortable with the numbers. And then earlier this year we noticed a sudden 40% drop in traffic. Nothing we did could help us make up for the loss or recover even half of the numbers. Could you help us?”
One of our jobs is to perform strategic site audits for our client’s websites. And the story is all too common: site appears to be performing well and then get badly slammed in search results, leading to a decrease in engagement, traffic, reputation and ultimately ROI. It only takes over sight of a few weeks to destroy the result of years of hard work. Site owners struggle to fix the damage, but keep coming up empty.
It is devastating for them, but there are ways to regain the glory of days gone by. It only takes a bit of SEO expertise and site analysis to come up with viable solutions.
Where Do Websites Go Wrong?
The problem is that most businesses fail to realize that SEO is not a one-off thing. It is an on-going process, details of which must be tweaked on a regular basis for maximum benefit to online marketing campaigns.
Companies that get away from SEO for a year or so, seeing how everything is working perfectly fine, are always in for a nasty surprise later on. And they realize the side effects of ignoring SEO, often when it is too late and the damage has been done. Google releases many tiny tweaks to their algorithm, and if your digital marketing team hasn’t been keeping up with them, then your website pays the price with a fall in the SERPs.
So for starters, never neglect your SEO efforts if you want your website to remain ‘front and centre’ in front of your visitors and prospects. Whatever your plans for the future may be, this is one aspect of your digital marketing that should work side by side withal your efforts.
How to Get Back in the SEO Game?
If you haven’t paid attention to your website lately start off by auditing it to ensure that it adheres to all of Google’s specifications for a good website. Next, make sure that the website is good enough for the visitors too by updating content etc. also make sure that your website is mobile friendly, clean up the UI and navigation if necessary and try to decrease the code bloat wherever possible.
Here’s an in depth look at our suggestions:
Lookout for Google Algorithm Updates
Panda and Penguin have small business websites on the verge of tears. These updates mean if your website uses any black-hat SEO techniques, Google may de-rank it until you make some changes. It’s a good idea to get professional help from specialised Google penguin recovery services, but until you do, work on removing thin content pages, improving pagination, fixing session IDs and URL issues. Work on enhancing the user-experience of your website.
Add Fresh Content to Your Site
Add a blog to your website, or start regularly updating the one you already have. Hire an in-house writer, outsource the job to a professional, do whatever needs to be done to guarantee that new content is added to your website at least on a bi-weekly basis. This will form a strong basis for all your SEO efforts and help enhance communication with existing and prospective clients.
Use Social Media
Twitter and Facebook are great for building a good reputation for your brand and connecting with the external stakeholders in an intrinsic level. Willingly answer questions, share content, and give them a million reasons to make their way to your website and may be even purchase something! This will help you regain rankings in the long run.
Diversity Is the Key
Underneath it all, Google is a benevolent search engine. If your website continues to add value to the interwebs, proves its usefulness to the general public, gets and retains attention of the masses, chances are it will regain its rankings in no time at all.
In the meanwhile, if you need our help to enhance your website and provide the best possible user-experience, you contact us. We look forward to seeing what challenges you can throw our way!