• SEO Rankings Can Go Up … And They Can Go Down •
• There Is Usually One Of Three Basic Issues Affecting A Rankings Change •

I have been writing about how I am able to maintain top SEO rankings for the keyword phrase garden art project: read about it here.

At the time of that article (March 25, 2008), I held the #1 and #2 Google SERP positions. Today, I see I have the #2 and #3 positions, and also that the total number of SERPs (search engine result pages) that Google is showing has dropped significantly from 2.4 million to about 1.2 million.

Here is a screenshot I took a moment ago:

See what can happen in just a few weeks with rankings and other search engine results? The number of competing pages dropped significantly and I would have thought I’d have stayed up at the top with my ranking positions, but I haven’t.

But you know what? I’m not alarmed, nor really concerned, as little fluctuations can happen from time to time.  I will just sit back for now and see what happens within another week or two. If this competing website is still at #1, then I will make a decision as to what I need to do to try and attain the top spots again.

Trust me, I am not boo-hooing, as #2 and #3 are still WONDERFUL Google rankings to have.

Why Do Keyword Phrase Rankings Fluctuate?

You can pretty well bet there is more than one reason why my rankings, or yours, or anybody else’s may take a small nose dive, a huge drop, or on the positive side, a rise in the rankings from week to week, or month to month. Some of us refer to it as “The Rankings Roller Coaster”.

There is one thing you can be sure of, and that is this: NOTHING  is for sure in the search engine rankings wars! LOL  Just as in life, the ONLY thing for sure is that things are in a constant state of change. And this applies to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and all the other search engines as well.

The Three Main Reasons For SEO Ranking Fluctuations

The three basic reasons for drops or rises are either you’ve changed your site in some manner; competitors’ sites have changed; or the search engines’ algorithms changed. Be aware fluctuations can be one or a combination of these three.

To give you a little more insight, here’s a few more things to think about:

On-site issues :  Page content, products, file names, even the actual coding of your website might change every now and then, on down to daily or even hourly changes. (It all depends upon how you maintain your site.)  Anything can cause a slight or even drastic fluctuation in the rankings.

However, all being kept about the same as far as what you normally maintain and “do” on your site, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about if you dip down a notch or two.

But, if you’ve caused a coding error, or caused a glitch somewhere on your site, you might experience bigger search engine ranking problems.

Back-links (in-pointing) links :  There can be a change or drop in some good quality links that point to your website from other well-ranking websites. This is something we usually haven’t too much control over. This is also something that will happen to even the best of sites.

Hopefully you’ve not fallen prey to buying “link building” software or hiring companies that promise to get you high rankings by purchasing in-pointing links. Normally these are junk links and though you may see a spike in your rankings, it’s a short lived situation. You can also hurt your rankings by going after links from websites that are in non-related niches, or in “spam niches”, and the like.

Just keep pursuing good quality, links from relevant sites to help counteract the times when you do lose a back-link.

Server down time :  Sometimes SEO ranking drops may be due to nothing more than your website being inaccessible when the search engines try to spider your content. Usually a single instance of inaccessibility won’t affect your rankings. But, if your site is down repeatedly during crawl times … you have a serious issue that needs fixing quick!

Remember: If the search engine bots cannot spider your site when they show up at your front door, then they’ve got nothing to analyze for your ranking positions. The solution to this possibility is to have a good reliable web host provider.

A change in search algorithms :  This is one area that you and I have absolutely NO control over. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other SE’s have these very smart analytical-type employees sitting in their offices figuring out complicated mathematical formulas that instruct the search engines on how to process the terms you and I are searching for in relation to the gazillions of web pages filled with another gazillion subjects.  Whew … that was a mouth full!

In other words, it’s a well guarded secret as to exactly what factors are taken into consideration to deliver you or me good ranking positions. Don’t get me wrong … yes we can get a pretty good idea of what causes “good” rankings versus crummy or non-existent rankings, but the absolute answers are locked up somewhere in the search engine vaults! :) 

Suffice it to say it is true that the better the content and more theme oriented your website is, the better you will do in the rankings. And the better you’ve succeeded with your SEO optimization efforts, the better you will probably do in the rankings, too.

And then there is your competition :  If we could get rid of the competition, we’d all be in great shape! But seriously folks, new sites come onto the scene; other sites add new pages of quality content; maybe other sites gain a few more quality in-pointing links than you have; maybe a competitor starts paying better attention to their search engine optimization efforts than you are; maybe someone just wrote a couple of new articles using a keyword you didn’t have much competition for previously … the list goes on and on.

Do you get the idea of all the variables that can come into play when it comes to a drop (or rise) in search engine rankings?

I will be touching upon more of these issues in greater depth in future posts. But for now, I do hope you’ve gained some insight into the reasons for “the SEO rankings roller coaster” effect.

• Don’t Get All Excited Over Your Alexa Ranking •
• A Recent Email From A Newbie IM’er Caused Me To Post This •

SEO professionals KNOW that putting any credence into Alexa rankings is wortheless. Whoa … did I say worthless? Yup!

I thought I’d make a post on Alexa, as just the other day a rather new internet marketer/website owner sent me an email bragging about how great their Alexa ranking was.  Oh dear, I had to burst their bubble, and tell them that ranking wasn’t going to do squat for them.

Alexa rankings are basically meaningless. How come?  Well, Alexa gathers their data ONLY from people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browser. Making matters even more skewed, most of the people with the toolbar installed are marketers and techie types.  People like you, me and “regular” web surfing folks don’t use it and quite honestly, most people have never even heard of the “Alexa toolbar”.

So … Alexa’s results are skewed towards the types of websites these marketers and computer-tech people frequent.

You CANNOT get an accurate picture of what’s popular online by looking at Alexa results. Think of it this way: if you wanted to know what the most listened to genre of music was in the entire USA, and you only asked 65-year old people what their favorite music is … well let’s say we’d not have a very accurate result for the entire USA, would we?

So, if you are a person who keeps checking your Alexa ranking … unless you are immersed into marketing in the niches that the Alexa toolbar users can be found in, I’d say STOP wasting your time even going there to look.

Start spending you time on something more useful, like writing quality content using a new keyword phrase, and of course … properly optimizing that page in order to try and achieve a top ranking position in the search engines!

• Sharing My Keyword Rankings In Order To Prove This SEO Stuff Works •
• Let’s Touch Upon The Most Basic SEO TEchniques •

Alright, I’ve given you a glimpse into one of my top-ten rankings keyword phrases in my previous post. Because the explanation of how my Home page ranks #1 for this keyword phrase isn’t beginning basic cut-and-dry tecniques, I thought I’d choose a keyword phrase that does clearly show the most basic level of optimization techniques.

This example couldn’t be any clearer, or easier to explain as to how I hold the #1 ands #2 spots as of today (and have been for quite awhile):

The keyword phrase is: hypertufa recipes

Content … Let Me Talk About That First

Alright, one of the most basic things you need to do with the on-page (your content) optimization in order to try and achieve top-ten rankings is to use the keyword phrase sprinkled throughout the page. I have done that. I also used a variation of the term, “hypertufa recipe (singular). If you review the actual content: Basic Hypertufa Recipes you’ll see what I mean.

Note: If you read through the page, you’ll see I haven’t over-used the keyword phrases … yes they may show up often on the page, but based on the quality level of information I am trying to provide for my all important visitor … the number of times I’ve used the keyword phrases is quite acceptable.

Next … The Title Tag and Description Meta Tag

Next is the issue of properly optimizing the Title tag and Description meta tag with the keyword phrase. Let me show you both of them as found in the #1 ranking position:

TITLE tag: Basic Hypertufa Recipes and Important Mixing Guidelines

DESCRIPTION meta tag: Start with the right hypertufa ingredients. These time-tested recipes will insure your garden art project’s success. Lots of ‘tufa tips & guidelines.

Can I let you in on something about the level of  “expert” SEO of these two tags?  It sort of stinks!  (Did I just say that??)  Yes … I wrote these tags when I first built the website many years ago and well … I wasn’t terribly proficient in SEO, but I was almost adhering to all the basic rules.  What do I mean by “almost adhering”??

I mean that I should have used both words — “hypertufa recipes” – TOGETHER in the description tag.  That’s what I teach all my clients to do.  And for sure, today I would definitely write a better Title and Description but you know what?  If it ain’t broke … don’t fix it!  lol

I’m leaving well enough alone because I am holding the top two rankings!  Why mess with something that is working??

Before I stop for today, I’ll mention one more thing that is causing these two pages to rank as nicely as they do.  It’s because my competition isn’t doing as good a job as I am in all the optimization factors nor are they experiencing some of the other important factors that help search engine rankings (in-pointing links; quantity of quality content, etc).  I’ll teach you about these “advanced” SEO issues in future posts.

I hope you are starting to get an idea of how your keyword phrase has to be focused upon in a number of ways for each page of content on your site.   See you later!