Just because you don’t see the things that can get you in deep danger, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
A lot of times, things can happen in SEO that leaves you questioning what went wrong. One moment you’re doing well and when you wake up one morning, the world is on fire. Traffic drops faster than algor mortis.
Because it’s October, why don’t we face our fears and explore some of the most famous aspects within the realm of SEO that can drag your business down a cold dark well.
Ignoring Updates
There are times that you honestly cannot keep up with everything that’s been happening around you. Most especially when you’re focusing on the wrong things, you will usually end up at the receiving end of another Google update like this:
And since we’re in this topic, let me clarify and share a few news updates around the web recently. As you may have observed as well, there has been a few noticeable fluctuations on ranking and traffic. Much like an old radio signal that keeps cutting off. However, up until now, there really isn’t any confirmed updates. What we can see right now are just after effects of something unknown.
And like all living things, the fear of the unknown is the most absolute.
But like a vigilant SEO, you must not get carried away with all this panic. All the chatter online about these recent fluctuations in the last few weeks, indicates that there must be some sort of testing going on. And because the last known confirmed update was that Core update and Medic update, we can all agree that Google may perhaps be tweaking that last algorithm change.
While we’re at it, we must all remember that Google “Medic” got its name because most of the sites back then that was affected was medical related. But that does not mean that this update was solely just for medical sites. Hence after effects happening up until now could be one of the causes.
Leaving Rotting Content
From all the recent whispers in the dark corners of the web, the most called upon aspect of SEO that being focused on is still content. Most importantly, its relevance.
On the recent Search engine journal post, it is mentioned that the relevance is still the key in surviving all of this apocalyptic nightmare of traffic and ranking fluctuations. Which, in our opinion, has been the very important thing since the beginning. All that focus on keywords and technical SEO and offsite link building have zero to little chances of working if you and your content aren’t aligned and relevant. It’s a reality that sadly, most of us today still do not or cannot grasp.
Whenever you start your keyword research, try to think ahead. See if these specific sets of keywords will be beneficial and are actually relevant to your content. If you don’t have the content to back it up, make some.
Don’t write some just for the sake of having content.
Make content that’s relevant, important and exciting.
Burying Technical SEO
All that focus on content isn’t all there is though. Yes, you still need to place a bit of care and focus on the most basic elements of your website like sitemap.XML’s and Robots.TXT’s.
Imagine if you actually ignored site speed for example. All of that beautiful content and website set up wouldn’t even get to see daylight. Is it okay for you to let your website become one with the dead?
Evil Links
Constantly checking your backlinks is important. Because, you’ll never know if there are already vampires attacking you and sucking all the authority and traffic out of your site.
Have you guys seen those videos of Vampire bats feeding on a sleeping Pig at night and the Pig didn’t even know what was happening? That’s what happens with Negative Backlinks at first. The good thing is that there are steps and tools that can warn you and even help you get rid of these bad links.
Cursed Blocking Tags
Lastly, there can be times that the whole website will disappear.
If you have some disgruntled co-worker, or just someone who’s got access to the back end of your website and adds a “noindex” tag? Your website and its rankings will all disappear. There have been instances that websites that did return to the SERPS after such curse had befallen them, experienced weakened ranking performance. Like they were permanently damaged.
First of all, like Ouija boards, never play around with blocking tags. Period.
Second, if you want to recover from such an event, make sure that you continue to give out cues to Google that you’re back and still giving out relevant content. Create content related to the keywords that had lost rankings. As long as you do nothing after this, you will stay disfigured and stranded down the black sea of the SERPS.
