A significant drop in SEO rankings is a tell-tale sign of an SEO issue on your site. Maybe a new algorithm update rolled out that you haven’t caught up on yet. Or, maybe you haven’t updated a page in so long Google has deemed it irrelevant.
Whatever the reason, you can always improve your SEO rankings and even get them to where they were before. Below, we provide a full guide on how to recover SEO rankings and maintain them through long-term SEO strategies.
Table of Contents
Why Have My SEO Rankings Dropped?
So, you’ve noticed that some of your page rankings have dropped. But with the constant algorithm changes, it can be hard to pinpoint the source of these drops. Here are some of the most common reasons your rankings might have tanked:
Changes in Google Core Updates
New Google core updates roll out every few months, which is why it’s important to stay on top of them. If you haven’t taken major actions on your site in a while, and there have been recent changes in the updates, it could be that there are new SEO criteria you need to fulfill.
Changes in Trends
There may have been a really good keyword cluster you targeted a few months ago whose stats have since changed. This could be a result of the search intent evolving or if the keywords were seasonal (e.g., Christmas sales). This can lead to reduced visibility and a ranking drop.
Technical Issues
Deindexed pages, broken links, and slow site speed are all technical issues that can lead to a drop in rankings. The same goes for duplicate content, messy URLs, and missing crucial elements like meta titles and descriptions.
Improvements by Competitors
If your competitors have recently made changes to their content that you haven’t, Google might recognize their content as more valuable and something that users prefer over yours. While this doesn’t mean you’ll have a major drop in rankings, it may lead to reduced clicks and impressions.
Google Penalties
If you get a Google penalty, your page will be deindexed (it will no longer appear in SERPs), and you may lose a significant portion of your audience. Luckily, avoiding Google penalties is doable as long as you follow all core updates and avoid black-hat SEO.
Outdated Content
Outdated content is often the culprit for reduced SEO rankings. It’s usually a problem for sites that have existed for years and have built up such a big number of pages it’s hard for them to do regular updates.
Major Website Changes
If you make a major change to a crucial page on your site (such as a redesign of your homepage or service pages), you might see a drop in ranking, especially if you’ve wiped out important keywords or optimized the layout poorly.
Tips on How to Recover SEO Rankings
If you’ve identified some of the reasons your rankings have dropped, you can start taking action towards improving them:
Fix Crawl Errors and Indexing Issues
In Google Search Console, under Indexing, go to Pages, and you’ll see this overview of indexed and deindexed pages on your site:
This will show you the number of deindexed pages, and you can scroll down to find out why these pages don’t show up in SERPs. Reasons may include server error, soft 404, a page with a redirect, a duplicate page, etc. Click on each reason to see which pages have been deindexed (mind that the number may not be accurate, especially if you’ve exceeded the page limit in GSC).
When you have a full list of deindexed pages, don’t just request indexing for all. Firstly, you shouldn’t do this because Google might view it as spammy. Secondly, you should review these pages to see if they need to be updated or deleted. You’ll gain nothing if you index a page that’s no longer relevant, has duplicate content, or features broken links.
Update Outdated Content
Updating outdated content is better than deleting pages. Why? Because Google values long-standing websites that keep their content fresh and aligned with the latest updates. Plus, by updating content, you won’t lose part of your backlink profile and traffic.
However, if you find a page with no clicks or entirely irrelevant content with no way of improving it, you can go ahead and delete it. Just don’t make this a standard practice.
Enhance Site Speed
If your page loading speed is low, users will bounce quickly, which Google will interpret as a negative signal. Make sure to maintain optimal site speed to increase the time users spend on your page, as well as the chances they’ll convert.
Furthermore, statistics show that there are more mobile users than desktop users, meaning you should optimize your site for mobile as well. Caching, faster hosting, and image optimization are just some of the steps you can take to improve your site speed.
Disavow Toxic Backlinks
The debate about what toxic backlinks are can get heated. Some SEO experts claim that a couple of spammy links here and there won’t hurt your rankings, while others claim that cleaning up these links is vital for your site’s health. Of course, going through each and every backlink and anchor text on your site can be unproductive; instead, focus on core pages.
Follow Your Competitors, but Go a Step Further
Blindly following your competitors’ footsteps makes you a copycat. After all, why should users click on your page instead of theirs? Could it be that you’re so focused on recreating the same structure that you’re missing key queries users are searching for?
When creating or updating content, always look for something that your competitors may have missed. For example, if you’re writing a guide on the best SEO software, don’t just merge the lists from your competitors but do your own research and give honest opinions. This automatically makes your content stand out.
Reclaim Lost Backlinks
Backlinks are a big factor in domain authority, which determines your ranking in SERPs. If you notice that you’ve lost an important backlink, you can try reaching out to the website owner and requesting that they reinstate the link. There’s no guarantee this will work, but it’s worth a shot if the link comes from a highly reputable site.
You should do the same with internal backlinks. If you’ve recently deleted some pages, your backlink profile will be weaker, and you’ll have to create a new backlink strategy to boost your interlinking.
Align Your Content with the Search Intent
This is why we stress the importance of fresh content – search intent can change over time, and your page might be deemed irrelevant by users. For example, a keyword that used to have an informational search intent might shift to transactional, which is an entirely different content form.
You can track your keywords’ search intent using tools like Semrush or Ahrefs and update your content when you notice a change. Do this periodically to maintain your rankings.
How to Maintain SEO Rankings
Once you achieve good rankings on your content, the work doesn’t stop there. You have to be consistent with SEO to see results:
Create Content for People, Not Search Engines
People-first content is more important than ever when SEO “experts” are churning out AI content left and right. While this content might provide a quick win, it won’t last long, because Google will flag this behavior as spammy. Instead, find good content writers to create blogs that users actually want to read.
Be a Helpful Source in Your Industry
Look for topics your competitors haven’t covered that your audience may be interested in. Target featured snippets like PAA sections and answer them thoughtfully – this makes you a direct info source for your readers.
Time Your Publishing
When creating and publishing content, be mindful of how often you do it. Avoid publishing more than one blog post a day, and avoid updating multiple pages at once. Give Google time to process the changes to avoid looking spammy.
Prioritize Linking
Every piece of content you create should include internal and external links, the former being more important than the latter. By linking to other pages on your site, you let Google know that those pages are important and should remain visible in SERPs.
Use AI Mindfully
You shouldn’t rule out AI for content entirely. In fact, it can be a great research tool or outline creator. But you should absolutely double-check every single piece of information AI gives you and create content according to the most recent data.
Maintaining vs. Recovering SEO Rankings: An Overview
Don’t worry if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all this information. In the end, maintaining vs. recovering SEO rankings boils down to:
| Maintain SEO Rankings | Recover SEO Rankings | |
| Approach | Proactive | Reactive |
| Focus | Preventing issues | Fixing issues |
| Goal | Ongoing improvement | Momentary fixes |
| Typical issues | Being aligned with trends, keeping content fresh | Algorithm changes, penalties, outdated content |
| Actions to take | Regular updates, interlinking, monitoring | Auditing, fixing penalties, updating content |
So, it’s not enough to learn how to recover SEO rankings – you have to be proactive to maintain them.
How to Recover SEO Rankings with SmartClick
Learning how to recover SEO rankings is vital for the health of your site and your conversion rates. But if you want to maintain consistency in rankings, momentary fixes won’t do much – you’ll have to take ongoing action.
At SmartClick, we have a specialized SEO team that monitors your content and how it ranks and identifies quick wins and missed opportunities. We can do a full SEO audit of your site and come up with a winning SEO strategy to recover any lost rankings and reestablish your domain authority.
Ready to improve your rankings? Get in touch with us and get an expert opinion on the SEO standing of your website.