I recently wrote in another post about how I noticed that some top ranking keywords, that have been quite stable for a long time, suddenly were ranking horribly. I could only deduce that a brief 36-hour glitch that affected the website in question, The-Artistic-Garden.com had caused it.

I also said that I wasn’t going to frantically start to tweak content, or change Meta tags or anything at that time. It is better in situations like this, to take a deep breath, sit back for a bit and see if things get back to normal.

Well … guess what? My Google rankings did settle right back to where they’ve always been in about 24-hours after I wrote that post! Those important keywords are now right back up where they belong.

What you can learn from this is, is that all of us  can have rankings flip-flop and dance around at times. It is something you can’t be totally immune to. I now know that my first hunch about what was causing the sudden drop was correct.

See? There was absolutely NO need to tweak or change anything! Think of all the wasted time, and possibly harm I might have caused to my ranking positions, had I started to try and figure out what to change to get those web pages of content back up in the top-ten.

Now … had I seen after two weeks or so that the keyword phrases in question were still suffering, then and only then would I have slowly and methodically looked at all the angles of what might have caused it before I started making changes to the web page content and tags.

How’s your website’s ranking positions? How long have you been online, yet still aren’t seeing a nice flow of targeted traffic to your site?

Did you know I gladly offer a Complimentary 30-minute Consultation? I’d be happy to take a quick-look overview of your site and give you my professional opinion of what might be causing you problems. I look forward to assisting you!

I am always striving to improve the environment in my 10ft x 14ft home office workspace. If you are a believer on any level that what you surround yourself with, whether it be people or things, truly affects your own thoughts and attitudes … then you’ll appreciate what I did for myself and my office yesterday.

I went shopping to find a yoga mat, as I’m taking up yoga again (after a 30 year hiatus I’m now sorry to say). I went to a great place to shop here in the United States, TJ Maxx. Mark down prices on great stuff. I love to save money, don’t you?

Well, I found the exact yoga mat I had hoped to find. Hurrah! Purple, too.    Then of course I had to breeze through a few of the other aisles. I’m not a big shopper by any means — as a matter of fact I am about the farthest thing from a “window shopper” you’ll find. I only go shopping if I need something specific (such as a yoga mat!).

So, I took advantage of the fact I’m in a great discount store … never know what else will jump out at me and say “Buy Me!”. Well … something did.

Just the other day I had said to myself, after accidentally tipping over a 1/2-full mug of, thank goodness, herbal tea (just herbal water to clean up) that sloshed all over my mouse pad, under the monitor stand and such … I said to myself “Claudia, you’ve GOT to get a mug with a bottom as wide as the top. Less tippy than this one!.)

So, not only did I find the shape I wanted, it was so darn whimsical and just plan cool I had to buy it!

It puts a smile on my face.

And the moral of of this story about the Alice in Wonderland Coffee Mug is: what are you doing to make your home workspace more pleasant, more enjoyable, maybe even more fun to work in?

After all, even if you are not a work-at-home or full-time online marketer like myself … you still ought to make the surroundings in your home office workspace reflect an atmosphere of peace, or serenity, or fun, or whimsicality … or whatever it is that will make you enjoy the time you spend in there just that much better for your overall attitude and creativity.

Going to get myself a cup of decaf tea now … see you later!

You know, I am sometimes neglectful of not checking up on rankings for pages on one of my older websites that does quite well for its niche. Because there are so many pages, and so many different targeted keyword phrases being used, I usually keep an eye on the ones that are responsible for the highest volumes of traffic.

I trust that the “lesser” trafficked pages are hanging in there and doing their job of faithfully bringing in the smaller groups of traffic that are of course very important. Due to competition, or due to the relative low search volumes of the keywords, I knew right off the bat that these pages weren’t going to be top-ten ranking stars.

And that’s OK. Every website or blog out there, if it contains lots of pages (or posts) of content, has many of these types of low ranking pages. But lower performing keywords do perform a great service … they provide good trickles of visitors that when added up bring in a nice CHUNK of traffic each month.

These keywords do get “found” by searchers, and if you’ve provided quality, keyword focused content on the page, then you’ll more than likely have satisfied the searcher’s desire for the information they were looking for. And just maybe they’ll continue to nose around your site. So … you and I need to love the less-searched-for keyword phrases, too.

But Sometimes You Find A Grand Opportunity To Make A Simple Keyword Tweak

DOH! What was I thinking way back when? Sometimes, even for a professional SEO consultant, yes sometimes you realize that a keyword phrase you utilized to optimize a page and which you thought was the right one to use, turns out to not be the best choice.

There can be many reasons as to why a specific term looks good to use and then upon review many months, or even years later, things have changed and it is missing the mark.
Well, this proved to be the case last night while I was doing research for a new eBook I am planning on writing.

While doing research with the oh-so wonderful Wordtracker keyword researching tool, I came upon a keyword phrase that just jumped right out at me. It was exactly the term that related to a page of content on my site AND I saw some impressive estimated search results with very very low competition!

A lightbulb went on. I remembered I had a page on my website that I seemed to remember optimizing for this exact keyword. Yet I knew it wasn’t bringing me much traffic each month. So … off I went to see how it was ranking.

I went right to Google, entered the term and looked and looked and found my page ranking #38. Not bad, but in my mind’s eye, not good. And I looked at the optimized Title and Description tags and hold on! What in the heck? I saw that what I had optimized the page for was not this wonderful, highly searched for and 100% relevant keyword phrase.

I was using this phrase as a modifier, but not as the primary phrase. That is why I was ranking for it (see how utilizing a secondary keyword phrase in your content can allow for ranking for that term, too?) but not ranking very well.

So … run, run I went to my Dreamweaver and carefully edited and SEO’d my tags and page’s content to reflect this great keyword phrase. It wasn’t hard to do, as quite honestly the page already was 100% about information that pertained perfectly to this great new rediscovered keyword phrase.

It’s OK To Tweak Your Tags And Content If The Need Arises …
Just Don’t Get Obsessive!

Clients ask me if it is going to be necessary to constantly edit to make improvements to their content if they would like to try for better rankings for certain keyword phrases. I tell them sometimes yes, but sometimes no. Making improvements to Title and Meta tags, content and such is all part of the ongoing process of search engine optimization.

But … it isn’t always a good idea to be continually going back and tweaking or rewriting the pages on your site in order to try and get better rankings. There are a number of factors you must take into consideration before you might waste your time doing so. If these factors add up, then tweaking can be a good thing to do.

Hold on Claudia, did you just say “… might waste your time”?  Yes I did and I’ll explain.

What I mean by this is that to my trained SEO consultant’s eye, I saw a huge opportunity just sitting there, waiting for me to step in to what I believe will ultimately be a top-ten ranking for this page. The reasons being: the top-twenty ranking pages are poorly optimized; some of them barely relate to the keyword phrase; my site is already ranked as an authority site, thusly has more ranking “weight”; this page contained the keyword phrase as a modifier, so the content was totally ready for the quick changes (no major rewrite necessary); and lastly, I know what I’m doing.

Under these circumstances, I’d be crazy NOT to tweak my page and go after a much better, highly trafficked term. It was worth my time  to go back and tweak that page. Again, it wasn’t a MAJOR rewrite. It was a rather quick editing job.

If It’s Going To Require Almost A Total Rewrite Of The Existing Copy …
Write A New Page

But most times, it is more productive to write a NEW page of content that is 100% optimized for the term you’ve uncovered. Let the “older” page of content remain as is. Write a new page. Just make sure it isn’t too similar in the wording so as not to get penalized for duplicate content or this new page most likely will be ignored in the search engine rankings. Make sure you offer some new information not found on the older, but similar page.

So, now I’m going to sit back and wait to see if what I’ve done will have an impact on not only search engine rankings, but on increased visitor traffic.

I’m remaining hopeful that this small improvement, that only took about 30-minutes of my time, will bring me a very positive result now and for the long term.

Running a new keyword research report every now and then never hurts, as you never know how market trends, or searchers query choices can change.  In my case, this was a situation where for whatever reason (way back when) I choose a keyword phrase over one that today proves to be better to target in every which way I look at it.

I had a meeting yesterday with a potential new client who not only needs my SEO services, but also will need a website redesign. She is a small business owner with a brick and mortar location, so only desires top-ranking local search visibility. As I told her, achieving fantastic ranking positions for many targeted keyword phrases will almost be a no-brainer, because right now, she has absolutely zero competition in town, and very little in surrounding communities.

But her finances are quite tight and she cannot afford my services at this immediate time. I understand this, of course.

How Can I Edit HTML Pages On My Website With My Mac?

In the meantime, she has a bit of a dilemma, as far as being able to update information on her website right now. You see, she had a friend “design” (if you can call it that) the site, and he used a PC. All pages are in HTML code. So, she’s stuck right now. She doesn’t have access to a PC. She asked if I knew of any free tools she could download that might allow her to use her Mac and deal with HTML.

First off, I have to say I have no experience with using a Mac. However, I am aware of alternatives that Macintosh owners can use to work around the situation for free.

She did say she was looking at a product called “Sandbox” that is around $75-$100 and it is what she’d need to be able to work with HTML pages. I will take her word on this. Just mentioning it in case this information might help someone else.

So, as I always try to be as helpful as I can to other online business owners, I offered to provide her with links to some freebies that just might fill-the-bill, and allow her to not have to purchase “Sandbox” right now since her finances are tight.

I thought this information might be helpful to any newbies out there, trying to deal with a situation like this. So, here were my suggestions. NOTE: I’ve no relationship with any of the organizations that offer these tools, so please investigate and then use at your own risk. You understand Mac’s, I don’t!

• Install the browser “iCab”.  It is a Mac-friendly browser and evidently takes the place of Firefox. Look at options #5 & #7 on this page: iCab Info Page. It seems that by being able to download an HTML file, and then having a WYSIWYG, it is possible to accomplish simple HTML web page changes via a Macintosh computer.
• Install a WYSIWYG:  in order to change the content on an HTML page, you need a web authoring system. These two are about the best freebie WYSIWYG’s around and both offer versions for Mac. So check-out: Nvu or KompoZer
• Install an FTP client in order to upload the HTML files onto your website. Here is a great freebie that has a version for Mac: FileZilla — look at the #3rd option. I use FileZilla and many millions of others do too. It’s reliable and easy to use.

Master The Learning Curves and HTML Woes Should Be A Thing Of The Past!

As with any new piece of software and such, there is always a bit of a learning curve. But I assured her (and you) that she should be completely able to make the changes she wants for now using the above freebies.

If anyone out there has any other ideas about this particular situation, I’d love to hear them. You can help educate me with your suggested Macintosh computer tips! 

It’s been almost a month since I posted about rankings on my own sites, and after taking a look at some of the keyword phrases I’ve previously shared with you here, I am not jumping up and down for joy as to how there appears to be a little slippage going on in my Google rankings for a few of the keyword phrases used on one of my sites - www.The-Artistic-Garden.com  Grrrr …

But I have to practice what I preach to my clients about ranking fluctuations, and so I won’t really get alarmed about this current situation. I’ve been through this a few times over the past few years, and I will go through the “Google dance” many more times in years to come. It’s all part of the SEO ranking “game” (it’s really not a game, of course, but sometimes it feels like it is!).

If Top Rankings Fluctuate … Do You Sit Tight Or Start To Tweak Content, Your Tags, Or What?

This is the million dollar question: “To Tweak or Sit Tight?” through Google’s, or any other search engine’s redetermination, and lowering, of your keyword ranking positions. This is not a cut and dry question to answer. There can be one or more factors affecting a drop.

Very simply put, the major reasons seem to be:

• A Change in the Search Engine Ranking Algorithm:  you and I have no control over this situation!
• Loss of PageRank/Link Popularity:  did one or more high ranking sites yank a link pointing to your site off their site? (as but one example)
• Duplicate Content:  did you add a new page(s) that too closely mirrors the content in an exisitng page for the keyword phrase that has dropped?
• A Penalty has been Imposed Due to an Abuse of One Sort or Another:  black-hat SEO techniqes; keyword stuffing; invisible keyword focused text; link stuffing; to name a few
• Broken Links On A Key Navigation Page:  you need to always make sure internal and out-pointing links are all in working order on all the pages on your site
• Server Problems: too much downtime which would keep the spiders from being able to enter your site
• Or … the competition is finally beginning to out-rank you!

To be honest, I don’t think I’m dealing with any of the above reasons.
However … I do think I might  know what the trouble is. I think that my ranking drops are due to a bit of erratic site accessiblity that really wasn’t a server problem, nor was it due to a goof-up on my part. Let’s just say there was a bit of a bumpy ride for about 48 hours a few days back, and I think that might be the reason.

But now, on the technical side of things, all has returned to normal for The-Artistic-Garden.com and I will patiently sit back and see what happens. In this situation, I am NOT going to start frantically trying to rewrite Title tags or Description tags for the webpages/keyword phrases in question.

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to reword, or reposition the keyword phrase in the Title tag and/or Meta tags, and even to go back into the page of content and decide if you need to improve upon it in some way. Yes … sometimes competing websites for various reasons just start to stomp on your top rankings and thusly you may have to do a little freshing up of things in an SEO sense.

In addition, it may not just be keyword usage. You may have slipped due to other sites gaining more quality in-pointing links; they’ve added more quality pages of content; etc. Like I said, there are many different angles to consider when determining what is best to do if keyword rankings start to fluctuate.

But for now, I’m sitting back, taking a deep breath, and will wait a bit to see if my rankings go back to where they were before.