A sudden drop in Google ranking can be caused by several factors, such as an algorithm update, technical issues, internal link issues, and a Google penalty.

However, don’t panic!

I’ve put together some helpful tips to help you diagnose your Google ranking issues and a possible way to fix them! Let’s get started.

Did Your Google Rankings really drop?

You need to be sure your rankings dropped, and not your SEO tools acting up.

First of all, check your rank tracer’s website to see if there are any issues. Just so you know, results with Google and the trackers could be tricky. The reason is that rank tracers often lag on updates as Google changes their search engine result pages.

Additionally, double-check your web analytics suite as well as your Google Search Console to confirm that your SEO traffic and Google rankings truly drop.

If after running these checks and you’ve confirmed that your ranking has dropped, then you can proceed with diagnosing the underlying issues behind the poor search position.

Diagnosing Your Google Ranking Problem

In this section, I’ll explain possible reasons your Google ranking may be dropping and how you can fix the problem – and possibly preventing it in the future.

Did You Get Penalized?

More frequently, a Google penalty could be the reason for ranking issues. And the tricky part is, there are a lot of reasons we don’t care about that could earn a penalty.

It could be that you implemented some Blackhat SEO tactics, duplicate content, keyword stuffing, broken external links, and the list goes on.

Whether an algorithmic penalty or a manual penalty, you should ensure not to face either of them.

That said, you could even lose out your ranking for some other reasons. So, read on and pay attention.

Traffic Changes

Analytics data, including web analytics data, Bing Webmaster Tools data, and Google Search Console data can help you identify falls in traffic and its effects so you can diagnose the issues.

However, keep in mind that a drop in rankings does not only come from issues from your site. You may want to check if there’s any problem with your social media presence.

Perhaps, the problem is with your hosting provider and has prevented users from reaching your site. In other words, ensure the page is indexable. Also, compare the period in which your rankings dropped to the time in which they were still good.

Most importantly, focus on problems that have the most notable bad impact on your site. For instance, you should prioritize a problem that impacted your site ranking from page one to page 4 on SERPs higher than a problem that made one of your pages dropped rankings.

Technical Changes

As before, double-check that your site is still reachable and search engines are still indexing your site.

Check if there are any changes in your HTTP status codes, Canonical URL, Robot.txt, or Meta robots tag.

Internal Link Structure Changes

If there are frequent changes to the internal links on your homepage or other authoritative pages, you might have unstable SEO performances.

More frequently, when you just performed a website redesigning.

But how to fix and improve rankings?

Having understood reasons your rankings may be dropping, the next big thing is finding possible ways to fix and improve your rankings. Here are two important things you can do:

1. Create High Quality, Optimized Content

One of the most significant ways to measure relevancy and rankings in the search results is to continue posting highly-optimized SEO blog posts.

If you publish a website or you’re starting a business, and just let it sit, chances are it won’t as well as your competitors’ who update their blogs regularly.

If you neglect your site for too long, consider updating your content now. Publish fresh, new content with natural SEO keyword – you may take a quick surf on your rivals – and watch your site rankings perform better.

However, in all you do, try as much as possible to avoid duplicate content. This is because no matter how relevant or unique your content is, duplicating it can affect your rankings negatively.

2. Consider Hiring an SEO Expert

If you’ve been through every step above and all you can think of, and still can’t diagnose your Google rankings drop issues, or perhaps you’ve tried fixing the poor statistics but all to no avail, it may be time to talk to an SEO expert.

The internet is already highly competitive to not pay attention or invest in your search engine rankings. So, it makes a lot of sense keeping up with your rankings. After all, your site is the most significant tool in your marketing strategy considering long term benefits.