There have been several major Google algorithm updates since July. I have had a number of businesses come to me and wonder what happened to the phone calls or what happened to their traffic. With Google constantly updating and tweaking their algorithm they will tell you that there are no more major updates and that it is a constant process, but we typically find one or two big ones per year that the industry names and documents. It seems that this fall has been extremely volatile and businesses are either seeing major boosts or sudden drops in their organic traffic.
We have been watching these adjustments come and go for over a decade and helping our clients pivot and adjust. Using the proper fundamentals for SEO, our clients are generally helped by updates because Google is generally getting better at rewarding sites that are doing it right. However, many DIYers or even those that were getting a lot of traffic by good fortune without proactively working on SEO, will sometimes find times when their traffic suddenly drops off or disappears. If you aren’t sure what happened, this service is for you.
Find Out When You Got Hit
First, we will look at your analytics and/or some third party tools to gather when your rankings and traffic suddenly dropped. We can use the timing of your drop to figure out what update it may have corresponded to. If it lines up with a specific Google update, we can use industry data and knowledge about the update and combine it with the strength and weaknesses of your site to determine what to do next. If it doesn’t line up with a Google update, we can sometimes find that it is something you may have accidentally done to yourself.
Find Out What Hit You
Once we have determined from the timing whether this was a Google change or a change you made, we can move forward with our examination.
If it wasn’t Google, does it line up with a site update or other changes done to your site? Have you changed something with your business or content that may have caused an issue? Is there something technical going on that can be resolved once we pinpoint it?
If it was Google, we need to find out what the update that got you is rewarding or punishing, and how your website correlates. Finding the cause of the issue allows us to narrow the path to give you the right instructions on how to recover.
Real and Actionable Instructions to Recover
Many of those SEO audits you receive randomly in an email are designed to just make you fail and scare you. In actuality, most sites have all sorts of imperfections that can be pointed out to the site owner. This can be paralyzing to the owner as having so many issues makes them wonder which ones to tackle first. Which problems matter and which are just noise. Of course, it would be great if all of our sites were perfect, but with limited resources, we want to attack what matters the most to our bottom line. We provide actionable step by step advice that will actually move the needle. For example, if it was the Fred update in 2017, and your rankings dropped because you had a lot of “thin content” on your website, we would need to address that with more thorough content. We will point out which pages are causing the issue and specifically what you should do with your content to resolve it. We don’t give you a fuzzy list of hundreds of issues that you don’t understand, we give you real-world fixes that you can employ to solve the problem. Solutions that you actually understand and take action on.
The Road Back to Success
Once you are back on the road to success, you can move on to other issues. Though we can help you get back on track with a plan managed by You Can Be Found, there is no obligation, and we will still tell you what needs to be done. You can do it yourself or hire another company to implement the plan. We are just happy we turned you in the right direction and set you back on the path to success. Of course we are happy to take over and keep you on the right path going forward, but that is your choice. Give us a call and get started right away. Every day that you wait is a day you aren’t moving in the right direction.
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