9 Reasons Why Your Website Rankings Are Not Stable

The reason is that it has never been easier to put yourself out there. Your message can be heard all across the world if you wish so. And everyone eventually caught onto that. Now, we have an online, digital, and globalized market to compete in. no matter the industry or niche, everyone needs to invest great amounts of money, time and effort in order to obtain good search engine rankings. It is important not only to get there but also to keep a high ranking position. This is where most companies fail to deliver. The question is, why are our rankings not stable? Also, how do we remedy this? In this article, we will cover the most common problems that cause instabilities in search rankings.

Keyword mapping

Keywords are one of the most basic elements of any SEO marketing campaign. Keywords are hierarchically classified based on relevance and significance. When put on our website, they represent the core element for search engines to classify our website. We can further put these keywords into groups and subgroups if needed. The point is for the keyword to be linked to a specific page on our website. This page needs to contain relevant content in relation to the keyword. SEO algorithms are checking for relevance. These enterprise pieces of software have grown quite mature over the years. There is no circumventing of fooling them. Getting your keywords right is the first and arguably, the most important part of any SEO related endeavour. If you have to restructure your content, do it as soon as possible. Map the proper keywords to the relevant pages that contain the appropriate content.

Hosting issues

Search engines check for the performance and response times of your website and the content found on it. The way they do that is they try and ping your website at regular intervals. Most likely, this happens several times a day. If the hosting provider for your website is down when that happens, their attempt will fail. This will result very poorly in your overall search rankings. Other things that have a similar effect are page loading times. Most notably, the overall performance of your website. It needs to be responsive. The average online attention span is surprisingly low, just a couple of seconds. If we miss that window, the audience will bounce off somewhere else. These factors are dependent on two factors. First is the way your website is made. We can always optimize further. The second most common one is the hosting provider. Choose one with care.

The design and the experience

Your website needs to look and feel good on all devices. SEO practices should be included in every step through the design process. There is a number of things to pay special attention to. Firstly, outline a website design strategy. Before you commit to anything, you need to have a clear goal and a path to it. Sketch out an information architecture strategy. Make a hierarchical and intuitive information tree that the users will have no issues navigating through. Then, you will need to design a content strategy and perform basic SEO optimizations on-site. The UI and UX are closely tied together with the customer experience and SEO. SEO practices are there to attract and retain customer attention. Most likely, it will require an adjustment period, especially if these were never done before. Create a transition plan. Go in with a plan, implement it, and stick with it.

Crawling issues

Digital spider crawling is a mechanism used by search engines. The metaphor comes from their algorithms crawling through your website and the content within. If these proverbial spiders encounter an issue while crawling, they will make a note of it. There are several issues a spider can encounter. The first one is the code your website is made of. If it is poorly written, it can cause major issues for everyone. The spiders will notice that. URLs are another key point when working with websites. These need to be logical and there are many URL shortener services around. Some web pages also contain private pages. All of these and many more problems can be resolved by submitting your website to Google using the Search console. Start with the robots.txt file, you will have to maintain it in the future. Crawling issues will become apparent so you can resolve them.

Brand trust

All businesses, no matter the industry or niche, need to build trust with their audience. This is the only way to get any sales. The customer needs to trust the company and their brand with their money. The products and services offered need to deliver. This is pretty much a given, but how does one build trust? Especially if they have no sales as of yet? Your audience needs to feel heard. Address their biggest questions and worries. Remember, your brand is here to solve the problems that your audience has. Take a look at the solutions you are providing them with and analyse its frame from their perspective. Emphasize how your brand is the best there is. Back that up with relevant market advantages that you have. Bring value through four offerings as well as your content. Over time, you will build a trusting relationship with your audience.

Consistency

People are creatures of habit. We function and coexist in an optimal manner using habits. Another way to build trust with your audience is to be consistent. It is an instinctive trait to trust something that you can count on and predict. Thus, the content you are publishing needs to be optimized and posted at regular time intervals. Notice that the emphasis is not necessarily on frequent posting. Much more important is the consistency part of it. All the experienced Sydney SEO specialists will stress the importance of posting content regularly. Customers need to know that you are keeping track of the latest industry developments. The opposite of this would be you posting 2 or 3 pieces of content one week and then take 2 weeks off. People do not like that. Do not aim to post frequently, but try and stick to a regular schedule.

Market fluctuations

Sometimes, our rankings will fluctuate without us doing anything wrong. As with any market in the world, this digital, online one can be highly turbulent. Rules and conditions constantly shift. It is also impacted by global events, another consequence of a globalized marketplace. The lower your website ranking is, the more susceptible it is to their fluctuations. The number one is usually experiencing the least amount of consequences from these occurrences. The reason is that at the top, there is far less competition. It is when you go down that the situation gets hairy. There is only one way to crawl your way back to the top. That is to publish new, quality content in regular time intervals. Basically, to employ all the tips and tricks we learned in this article. Consistency in quantity and quality is the only way. Search engine algorithms change regularly. You need to follow suit.

The influence of competition

As with the previous point we made, it could be that you are doing everything right. It could be the case that your competition is doing a better job at it. It is simply the way of the modern marketplace. The best course of action to take is to proactively observe your competition. A pound of cure is worth an ounce of prevention. If you can act before any major damage has ensued, you will be better off in the long run. If not, the same rule applies. What is it that the competition is doing better? Just how are they achieving that? Discard your competitive disadvantages in favour of better business practices. Look at their social media activity, link building practices and content marketing. Or maybe, they are just building a better product or service. Either way, make sure to analyse your business process and improve wherever needed.

Redundant or obsolete content

Redundancy and obsolescence are big no-nos when it comes to SEO. This is the kind of content that appears within a domain that is very similar to another piece of content. Some may call it plagiarism. Whether it is indicative of deceptive or malicious practices or not, it definitely tanks your SEO rankings. Duplicate content can be used to artificially increase traffic. Search engine algorithms are well-versed in spotting that kind of content and the brands associated with such practices. Make sure to remove or even better, refurbish duplicate content. It will help your SEO endeavours greatly.

As we have stated, there is one major commonality when it comes to your website rankings staying consistent. Yes, it is consistency. Be consistent in your well-thought-out SEO endeavours and you will be rewarded with the top spots on the search engine rankings page.