Reviewing Website Ranking Account Trends

Website Ranking Trends and Fluctuation

When reviewing organic success it is paramount to pair rankings and analytics together. This is more crucial than ever given the intelligence of search engines now days. With over 2.5 quintillion (1018) bytes of data produced daily. There has never been a bigger data set for search engines at their fingertips when determining who should show up in queries. Is it because of this we have to utilize some of the same data to determine how we are doing and what we can do to help improve site functionality, rankings, and ultimately conversions. Below we will review a few ways to identify common account trends using Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Ranking Data (In our case Boostability Launchpad Reporting).

Positive Results

As we can see with the example provided is the ideal scenario we can run into. With the proper combination of keyword, content relevance and page authority. We can see a positive trend not only in the organic ranking but in the site analytics as well. This result will essentially assure you that what you are doing is working. The best option is to continue work with relevant content and keywords to ensure relevance and freshness is maintained.

Lack of Relevance

In reference to our scenario lack of relevance is often seen by a lack of ranking. There is usually little to no traction gained for a specific keyword. This can be the result of a few things either keyword related or onsite related. The first scenario related to keywords comes down to the keyword selection. This can be a keyword phrase that the website or page targeted is not recognized as relevant by search engines. The second scenario is related to the content of a page not being relevant to the targeted keyword. In our scenario we see this is the case based on Google Webmaster Tool data. This is fairly easy to combat either way by refreshing or focusing the content on a given page.

Lack of Authority

The trend seen in this case is often slow or stagnant rankings with minimal gains in site analytics. This is usually due to a lack of authority or offsite work on a specific page or keyword. There are a few ways to treat this result with best results coming from some sort of combination of content, link-building, and page structure. Each solution can provide a distinctive benefit. Content can provide information external users could potentially use and in turn link to the targeted page naturally. Link-building can provide fairly immediate results by providing authoritive references to the selected page. Page restructuring will often times provide a fresh look at a page for search engines. This can help provide some additional lift in organic rankings.

Difficult Competition

When we use competitive keywords we often see slow or stagnant rankings. A review of the competitors currently showing the SERPs can often show the most glaring culprit. In some cases a customer may be spreading themselves too thin, have generic or weak content, or is new and lacking authority. In this case it seems that the competition is based on site wide content. When we review the SERPs (Below) we find that there are entire businesses dedicated to ONLY dentures. This means that in reality we are competing with 10-20 pages of content site wide. Not to mention the links to the website overall for just dentures. The best way to overcome this trend is to excel and beat what is working for the competition. In our case the best solution would be to create more content based on the dentures. We can even look at producing blog posts to help generate this content.

Poor Site Behavior

This trend is often a quick positive with some fall or backtracking after a few days or weeks. The best way to see this is by viewing the Google Analytics and reviewing website statistics before, during, and after ranking gain and loss. Often times you can see a clear indicator that some site stats regressed with increased traffic. This is a strong signal for Search Engines that users did not find what they were looking for when they searched a specific keyword and found your site. In our example we see with ranking they saw an increase to their Organic Traffic but saw a negative user behavior trend in Google Analtyics. Don’t view this as a negative it simply means there is more work to be done on the website. A quick remedy for this is usually content, page layout, or calls to action. Fortunately this is something that can happen quickly and is something immediately actionable.

Lack of SERP Relevance

This result is rare but can happen from time to time. The basic scenario is one where we gain rankings organically and they are either lost or displaced. What traditionally happens is we focused our efforts on a specific keyword. The Search Engines interpreted the keyword one way and eventually switch to a different way of interpreting the searchers intent based on their own data. For the keyword seen initially we were very relevant for “Commercial Safe” in the Edmonton area. However a year later Google is now looking at news topics for “Commercial Vehicle Safety” in Edmonton. Unfortunately this isn’t something that can be solved for other than moving to a different keyword focus. Or continuing as is, in hopes that Google will switch the SERP back eventually.

Summary

In review we can see how a site can progress in the search engines, from Positive Results to SERP Relevance shifting. The key take away is that there is always action to drive the best results and success even when the results aren’t always positive. Generally it takes more attention and work whether it is onsite or offsite. Always keep data in mind when determining account needs. With so much at our disposal it is easy to find some data to support even minor decisions on a website. It is a good reminder that a website is NEVER complete there will always be something to add or improve on a website. The same can be said for businesses in general.

As always keep boosting and you can achieve great things!