What to do when your website rankings suddenly drop

It can be quite alarming when you check your rankings one day and find that your website has dropped significantly for phrases you used to rank well for. Before you panic though, there are a few things you should check.

Firstly, make sure you’re checking your rankings properly using private browsing or proper ranking software. Sometimes your own search history can skew the results and make you think you’ve dropped when actually you haven’t.

If your rankings have genuinely dropped, it may be that Google has done an update. They’re constantly updating their algorithm and sometimes this affects sites negatively even if they haven’t done anything wrong. You may find that after a few weeks things settle down again.

It’s also worth checking whether a competitor has suddenly started ranking above you. If they’ve launched a big content campaign or improved their site significantly, they may have overtaken you. This doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with your site, just that theirs has improved.

Have a look at your Google Search Console to see if there are any errors or issues that might be affecting your site. Sometimes technical problems can cause rankings to drop quite dramatically in a short period of time.

If you can’t work out what’s causing the problem, it’s probably time to speak to an SEO expert who can analyse your site properly and work out what needs fixing.