You used to have excellent search engine rankings for your website; it was everywhere in the search engines, and you were getting a lot of traffic that resulted in emails, phone calls, leads, and sales. Then something occurred, you don’t know what, and the leads and sales stopped coming in. 

You look at your analytics statistics and see a significant drop in traffic. You’ve been awoken. When you look at your ranks, you notice that they’ve dropped or vanished altogether. You’re scared at this point, not just worried. How could anything like this happen?

Rankings might plummet for several causes. Sometimes it’s because of a blunder that could have been avoided. It may have less to do with what you’re doing and more to do with what your competitors are doing. In certain situations, a decline in ranks is the inevitable and temporary outcome of your planned activity.

With all of that being said, let’s now cover nine reasons why your rankings may be dropping. Be sure to run through the full list below and if you’ve seen any crazy SEO movements lately, your reason might be as a result of any of the changes below.

You’re Keeping Track of the Incorrect Rankings

When it comes to searches, there has been a movement toward “natural language” in recent years, with individuals entering, or increasingly speaking, complete phrases into search engines instead of just a few keywords. Your keyword strategy may be out of date if you’re tracking general terms. People searching for you are utilizing new keywords or phrases. Therefore your keyword approach has to be updated.

Google’s “Dance” 

It’s natural for rankings to change. Not just from one day to the next, but also from one computer to the next, from one place to the next, and depending on various other factors. By altering search results, Google is continuously evaluating every variable it can identify. This is one of the reasons why focusing too much on specific rankings is counterproductive. Your SEO business may provide you with a ranking report. 

Still, the results may change when you examine them on your computer, simply because the report was generated separately. Alternatively, the rankings may have shifted since yesterday. Ranks that aren’t affected by the other factors on this list don’t change much, but the Google dance might be the only plausible reason for minor decreases in rankings.

New Website Update

You should anticipate your rankings to decline if you introduce a new design for an existing website, regardless of what you do to prepare for the launch and how much better the new website is in terms of SEO than the old one. 

Make sure you have a good 301 redirect plan in place to avoid a decrease in rankings. Many companies have gone out of business as a result of that one blunder. Before releasing the new website, make sure it is well optimized. However, be prepared for a decrease in ranks, at least briefly. In most cases, rankings will return within 1-2 months, if not sooner.

New Website Redesign 

You released a rebuilt website to replace an old one, and the ranks dropped but soon rose again, even higher than before, before dropping again somewhat. Or you established a fresh new website, which rocketed to the top of the rankings after a few weeks, only to plummet–significantly. This is a regular occurrence as well. The trick is to be patient and to invest in SEO that follows best practices. Long-term rankings necessitate long-term efforts.

Poor Quality Links

Many businesses made the mistake of resorting to an offer of thousands of links for a low fee a few years ago. Websites with a high number of low-quality links pointing to them are seeing their ranks decline or disappear altogether due to numerous changes made by search engines to stop what they view as “search engine spamming.” “You should make every attempt to clean up artificial connections pointing to your site,” Google recommends if your site is being hurt by links you don’t directly control. You have the option to disavow such links as a final resort.

Poor Web Hosting

Switching from a low-quality hosting firm to any of the most trusted hosting solutions can result in a huge site performance. It’s also good to choose one that has their data center in the best location for quick page loads for your site visitors might result in user behavior that informs search engines that other websites should be ranked higher than yours. The solution is to ensure that the bulk of your website visitors enjoy a quick, snappy experience by hosting the site as near to your visitors as possible and paying enough to have your website hosted on a server that isn’t clogged with 5,000 other websites.

The robots.txt file is Incorrect

People usually make a mistake in the robots.txt file. People unknowingly order the search engines to disregard their website and that no one should ever discover it. In this case, traffic will no longer flow to your website. The good news is that once you discover this problem and correct the error, the rankings usually return within a few days, if not weeks. Make sure your robots.txt file follows standard practices and is free of errors.

Competitor Analysis

It’s a zero-sum game when it comes to search engine rankings. Suppose one website’s ranking rises for a particular term, at least one other website’s ranking will drop. This is one of the reasons why SEO services are offered continuously rather than just once. Because your rivals’ websites are continually developing, yours will never be entirely optimized. It’s a never-ending game of king of the mountain, and the only way to stay on top is to keep working hard.

Google’s Latest Update

Google employs thousands of PhDs who strive to enhance its search algorithm. Every year, the algorithm is modified hundreds of times, with some of the modifications being significant and disruptive, while the most have a minor influence. The names of the more significant upgrades are generally animal-themed, such as Penguin, Panda, or Hummingbird. 

The issue is that when Google makes an update, it affects the ranks of websites that aren’t compliant. To avoid being penalized by Google, adhere to the Google Webmaster Guidelines as best practices and only use white hat SEO techniques. This is the approach to rankings that will bring in traffic now and in three years.

SEO Tips Summary

It’s critical to realize that there is no quick fix or trick for increasing website traffic. To increase your search rankings, you must use the proper methods and put in a lot of effort. So, please take a close look at your rankings, figure out what’s impacting them, and get to work improving them to obtain the outcomes you want.