Have you noticed a sudden or constant drop in your search engine keyword rankings for certain pages? Stop focusing on the question “Why is my website not ranking on Google?” and instead start looking for expert tactics on “how to rank my website on search engine results pages”.
If your web pages aren’t performing well in search engine results pages (SERPs), your online visibility can be severely impacted within days, weeks, or even months. That means less organic traffic will find and visit your site. And you know what happens next: your sales suffer, too.
You need to act quickly to improve your search engine optimization strategy or SEO strategy once you notice the first signs of a decline in global or local SEO rankings. This article wordpress web design agency will explain the reasons for the decline and accompany you with actionable tips on how to improve your Google search ranking potential. We also emphasize the importance of dedicating time to tracking and monitoring keyword rankings.
9 Reasons Why Your Website Rankings Have Declined and Ways to Get Back on Top
Reason 1: Some important pages do not have index tags
When you are tracking keyword rankings and discover that some interesting pages are not visible at all in search results, you may have missed a “noindex” tag in the pages. This meta tag tells Google or any search engine’s web crawler to ignore indexing a page. Without crawling and indexing, your pages will have no chance of ranking in SERPs.
Let’s first look at the possible causes of this issue. The “noindex” tag could be added to some pages during development and left there by mistake when the pages are published. Some content management systems (CMS) like WordPress also have an option to prevent search engines from indexing pages, such as those containing sensitive information and shopping carts.
How to fix it – Improve the SEO ranking of the affected pages by removing the “noindex” tag. Verify that the “noindex” error exists by checking the Coverage in Google Search Console. If you have a relatively new website and without enough data in Search Console, try tools that crawl your site and show you the pages affected by this ranking error in Google Search.
Reason 2: Googlebot cannot crawl certain pages
Robots.txt is a text file that contains instructions for web crawlers, including Googlebot. Block or allow access to your pages. So, for example, if you include a rule that prevents Googlebot from crawling specific pages, the search giant won’t be able to discover those pages. This can affect SERP rankings and visibility.
How to Fix It – Make sure search engine bots can access critical pages, such as https://example.com/blog. If you don’t know where to find the robots.txt file, here’s a handy tip to improve your Google search rankings: leave the solution to the experts. This should help you avoid major technical SEO mistakes by understanding the scope and limitations of a robots.txt file.
Reason 3: You lack high-quality external links
Pay attention to your backlinks. They exist to improve your online visibility (read: how to improve Google search rankings).
According to studies, backlinks, or links found on other sites that point to your pages, are a critical Google ranking/local SEO factor. Having a reputable site referencing your page in their content increases your credibility, which helps Google determine the relevance of that page to a keyword or user query.
In short, backlinks or external links can affect your SERP ranking. If you have no, excessive or spammy backlinks, your position in the search results is compromised.
How to fix it : Monitor keyword rankings and audit your link profile using tools like Ahrefs, Sitechecker, and SEMrush. You can check details like which sites are linking to your pages, your domain authority, and anchor texts. Plus, you can uncover suspicious links and link loss, so you won’t have to wonder, “Why isn’t my website ranking on Google?”
If your problem is due to a thin link profile, learn how you can improve your overall link building strategy or include link building in your online marketing efforts.
Reason 4: Search intent is not a priority
Here’s another likely reason if you’re scratching your head and asking, “Why isn’t my website ranking on Google?” You might have created content for a popular keyword, a keyword that your target users are searching for frequently, but it doesn’t satisfy the users’ search intent. What does that mean?
Let’s say you’re in the real estate industry and you’ve prioritized a popular keyword like “how to buy a house in X city.” You’ve decided to incorporate this keyword into your sales page. In the copy, it simply mentions that its real estate advisors could help readers buy a house and proceeds to list its housing options. Meanwhile, its competitors wrote blog posts listing deal breakers before providing a list of housing options. And they ranked high on the SERPs because of it. This is because they aligned their content with the intent of the target audience, who were still in the awareness/interest stage of the buying process.
How to Fix It – Use tools like BuzzSumo or SEMrush to track keyword rankings and top results. Analyze articles, their structure, and content and update your page or create new content accordingly. If you’re up against major competitors, make sure to improve your search engine optimization strategy.