Why Can’t I Raise My Rankings?

Do you struggle to figure out why your rankings have tanked? Have you noticed that you can’t seem to raise them?

Search engine optimizations (SEOs) are key to getting your website to rank higher on the search engine result pages (SERPs), but sometimes it feels impossible to make those changes. There may be a few hidden culprits at play if you struggle to raise your rankings.

Learn more about how you can improve your rankings below:

Google Algorithm Update

One of the first things you may want to check for if you are having a hard time raising your ranking is a Google algorithm update. Google isn’t necessarily forthcoming about when a change is on its way or when it has already occurred. However, it is estimated that they roll out changes a few times each year.

If you haven’t made any recent changes to your website and are having a hard time raising your rankings despite search engine optimizations, investigate whether there has been an update.

SEO specialists can often identify when these updates roll out, so it might be worthwhile to consult with Get Visible to see how you can improve your rankings. We can help you pinpoint the cause of any decrease in the rankings.

In addition to algorithm updates, they might also change their SERP layout. This type of change can impact where your page appears as they add new things like snippets, videos, and charts to the top spot. If you are not the primary holder of some of these content elements, then you will ultimately be pushed farther down the page.

Website Changes

Perhaps one of the major reasons that your rankings may have dropped stems from an overhaul of your website. When a team member makes a change to the copy on your site, you may no longer rank for the same keywords.

If your pages had search engine optimizations made to them that disappeared, you may notice a sudden drop. To regain your ranking, you will need to restore that content.

Ask around in the office to see if anyone made any changes. It is possible that a simple algorithm update changed your rankings, but most of the time, changes are caused by something broken on your page.

You can use SEO monitoring tools to see why your page no longer ranks for the keywords you like. Get Visible can help you return to the top of the SERPs, and we offer a free SEO consultation to learn more about your business and show you how we can help you.

Technical Changes

Many people aren’t sure how their website works behind the scenes, but technical changes could be a culprit if you are having trouble raising your rankings. Search engines may no longer be crawling your website like they were before. You can survey whether this is the case by crawling your website or looking for alterations in your:

HTTP status codes
Canonical URLs
Meta robots tag
Robots.txt file
Hreflang settings

Redirects are one of the leading causes of drops in search engine results. Old pages and their URLs may no longer redirect to the current page if the website was migrated, the page was removed, or the URL was simply entered incorrectly.

These redirects can be problematic for several reasons and are challenging to pinpoint without technical knowledge. If you aren’t sure what any of these things mean, it might be time to consult with a professional to make sure search engines can find your page.

Internal Linking

Your website ranking is partially based on how long users engage with your page. Internal links are key to search engine optimizations because they lead people to related content and keep them engaged and happy on your pages. Making changes to your internal link structure, including removing internal links, can impact your rankings.

For example, you may decide to modify your website and remove internal links from the sidebar, header, footer, or homepage. Doing so can lower your rankings, so consider restoring those links.

Updated Content

Another way search engine optimizations can be impacted is by updating your content. A change to the title, meta description, and even the headings of your content can cause rankings to plummet. Google and other search engines use the keywords in your content to determine what your page is all about.

Changing the body of your content can make it harder for Google to decide what your page will help readers with. The best thing to do is not touch old content, and that includes deleting pages that you are ranking for. You may choose to redirect users to a new and updated page instead of deleting old ones.

This approach helps your internal linking and prevents technical issues from occurring.

Loss of Backlinks

This issue can be a bit harder to track, but it is still possible to find out whether you are losing backlinks. They can be found via online tools or with the help of companies like Get Visible. If other pages change their content to eliminate their backlinks to your site, your site is bound to become less visible in the SERPs.

In addition to deleted backlinks, Google also monitors whether those links are considered spam. A link that isn’t found to provide value for users can penalize you in the results, even though, most of the time, links are great for search engine optimizations.

A spammy link won’t provide any value to the reader, even though it doesn’t necessarily hurt anything. However, you may want to disavow them and simply be prepared for a decrease in your search engine results.

Raise Your Rankings

Are you ready to raise your rankings the right way? Get Visible can help you with search engine optimizations that can allow more customers to find you and increase your revenue. If you aren’t sure where your website is going wrong, no-obligation consultation with one of our SEO experts is a great choice for you.