Hi there, and welcome to issue #19 of the Outranked SEO newsletter.
In this issue, I’m sharing my thoughts about what to do, and more importantly how to think, when you see key search rankings drop.
I'm not talking about traffic losses, here. Yes, they're a symptom of ranking drops, but that can also be caused by lots of other things.
Today, I want to encourage you to think differently about why you've seen ranking drops, how to find the possible reasons and what to do to regain what you've lost.
You’ll learn:
- Where to look first when you've seen ranking drops.
- Why most "fix it" recommendations to reverse ranking drops totally miss the mark.
- The common reasons why ranking drops happen right now.
But first, I've got a few favours to ask!
Chima Mmeja runs The FCDC (The Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries); a UK non-profit that provides free training, support, and mentorship to BIPOC marketers, particularly those living in developing countries. It has grown from a scrappy spreadsheet into a community of over 4,000 marketers in 40+ countries.
Right now, she's running a survey alongside Citation Labs that's exploring "What SEO Hiring Managers Want." For every completion, The FCDC receives a £15 donation.
Please consider spending just a few minutes completing the survey; it doesn't take long but every one goes a long way to helping this fantastic community.
You can complete the survey here.
Secondly, Luca Tagliaferro is also running a survey which looks to understand more about when and why marketers are contributing thought leadership articles to industry publications. You can complete this one here.
Let’s get into it.
When you see your rankings drop, focus on what the sites who now outrank you are doing that you're not.
Picture this situation...
Your site ranked #1 for a lucrative keyword for a few months.
You then see this drop, with traffic (and revenue) to the page also down as a result of this.
I'm going to assume that this isn't significant drops seen across the entire site, that's a different situation (maybe I'll address this in another issue). But that this is a keyword-level (and therefore page-level) drop in rankings.
When this happens, turn your attention to the site or the sites that have now outranked you.
You can use Ahrefs' SERP overview in the Keywords Explorer tool to see how results have shifted between two dates:
Remember that when one site loses rankings, another one gains rankings.
Yet so often we spend too much time focusing on what's wrong with our site or page, rather than putting the effort into figuring out why the site that gained rankings has won.
If you changed nothing, and saw rankings drop, it's (almost always) because another site did something (either recently or that has compounded over time) to deserve a higher ranking than you.
Reverse engineer what the site that won is doing that you're not, and you'll gain far more insights than guessing at what you should have done differently.
I talk a lot about 'investigative SEO,' and this is exactly what I mean by that.
I've seen many suggestions to reverse ranking drops in the past that often totally miss the mark. Things like:
- Let's go build more internal links to the page.
- We need more backlinks pointing to the page.
- Let's go create more 'supporting content' to build topical authority.
Now I'm not saying these things aren't important to earn rankings in SEO. They are.
And if we're talking about a brand new site, or one that's never ranked and is on the up, these things all contribute to growth.
But recovering lost rankings is a totally different scenario to ranking a site at the top of the SERPs in the first place. So stop thinking about it the same.
If you had enough link authority, internal links or supporting content to rank in a certain position yesterday, you've got enough to rank there today. At least, as a general rule.
These things aren't going to recover your lost rankings.
If another page has taken your rankings, go look at what that page is doing that you're not. It's almost always page-level actions you need to take when you've previously held a ranking (unless you're seeing sitewide ranking drops and there's a wider issue, again let's assume that's not the case here).
Even if there's been a recent Core Algorithm update, this is still a solid process to follow. Ultimately, it's all about figuring out why another page was promoted and yours demoted.
But, remember...
Drops need context. Some are blips (Google testing different results, for example) and others are sustained.
Don't rush into making drastic changes. Make sure the drops are sustained before doing too much; that doesn't mean you can't start analysing, though.
Start on the SERPs. Look at and think about:
- Is their result more clickable than yours?
- Does the page title that's shown encourage a searcher to click more than yours?
- Does their result include rich snippets that yours doesn't?
If there's one thing we know (rather than suspect) off the back of Google's DOJ trial is that user signals are used. If you've earned a top ranking but people aren't clicking, you're not going to sustain it...
Now look at the page. Consider:
- How does their content stack up against yours? Maybe the most common recommendation I'm making right now to brands whose key rankings have dropped is that they've got too much content on their pages, therefore diluting the focus. Often, I'm seeing pages with far less content take spots from those with too much.
- Do they answer the things a searcher wants to see on the page better than you do? Or maybe you don't at all? I'm getting fed up of seeing "What is [topic]?" at the top of a transactional page. The fact I'm searching for something usually means I know what it is.
Get in this mindset.
Things that searchers really want to know are things like "why this business or product over another?," "what's it going to cost me," and "where's the proof this business is genuine or legit?"
- Is the intent the same as your page? It's not uncommon for Google to shift from ranking an information page to a transactional one, or vice versa. If Google's rewarding a different intent over what you're serving, you need to go plug that gap and create that content, too.
- Are they using things like media (images, video etc) depending on the page type to increase engagement? Are you?
In my experience, most ranking drops can be reversed by page-level changes. Often, it needs significant reworking, but it's where I usually find the 'issues' are.
Here's the result of completely reworking a couple of pages that were 'stuck' ranking middle of page one after having dropped.
Straight back into top rankings when we totally overhauled the page, placing a focus on the key information searchers want and need to see. In turn, this increased both engagement on the page and resulted in less 'fluff' content.
Go look at brand factors.
- Has your competitor been able to drive an uptick in "[brand] + [keyword]" searches? This is a powerful signal, and spans way more than traditional SEO to drive this (think TV advertising, social etc), but it's often a contributor to why one brand wins over another.
Only then, consider other potential causes on your own site. Things like:
- Whether you're suffering from keyword cannibalization.
- Whether you (or your developers) have accidentally noindexed the page.
Above everything else, don't try to overcomplicate things.
Nine times out of ten, it’s not some obscure SEO issue that caused the drops; it’s that another page is simply a better answer right now to a searcher's query. Your job is to close that gap.
The takeaway…
Ranking drops aren’t just setbacks; they’re the best opportunities to sharpen your investigative SEO skills.
Each time you work through this process, you’ll get better at predicting what it takes to win before you lose.
So next time you see a ranking drop, don’t start doing things in panic mode or blindly add content.
Put on your investigative hat, dig into why your competitor’s page was promoted, and rebuild yours to win it back. That’s how you turn ranking losses into growth.
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If you learned something from this issue or it’s made you think about SEO a little differently, please consider forwarding it to someone else on your team.
I’m on a mission to make sure more SEO investment actually has an impact on real business metrics.
Appreciate you making it to the end; same time next week?
- James Brockbank
P.S. If you ever need expert support with SEO or digital PR and want to drive results that actually matter, I’d love to chat. Let’s talk.
✍️ From the Loft...
Fresh from our side of the web; here’s a few things me and other Lofties put out into the world or appeared on this week.
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📌 This week’s bookmarks:
If I could only send three links to a fellow marketer this week, it’d be these…
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👋 Hi, I'm James...
Managing Director & Founder at Digitaloft.
I've spent the last 10 years building an agency that's perfectly positioned to help ambitious brands to drive real business growth from SEO and digital PR.
You might have seen me speaking at events like BrightonSEO, SMX and the International Search Summit.
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