You Have Very Little Content on Your Site
You may have been ranking well for keywords simply because there wasn’t much competition at the time. Maybe you had these words in your URL or your page titles, and that was enough to sky rocket you to the top. But now, your competition is in the game too, and they have a website loaded with helpful content to bring in new users. A website with no content has a limited lifespan and will almost certainly fall lower and lower as more helpful websites get created. Luckily for you, your website has the authority the pull you right back up if you put a proper content marketing strategy in place quickly.
You Have Duplicate Content
Just because your website has some content, doesn’t mean it has the right kind of content that Google is looking to promote. If your website has duplicate content, you will be penalized by Google. This term can refer to either multiple pages on your website with exactly the same verbiage or content on your website that exactly matches content somewhere else. Copy and pasting content isn’t the way to build your website, so take the time to do it correctly and create quality content that is unique to each page and to your viewers.
You Bought Links in the Past
Buying external links is one of those practices that used to help your ranking, but now lowers them. It’s possible that several years ago, you were scoring the top spot in SERPs because of your paid-for links, but Google’s penalties have caught up with you. This type of Black Hat SEO is certainly harmful, but thankfully it is not irreversible. Remove or disavow these links right away to stop the bleeding.
Google likes your content to be fresh, so they reward websites that regularly publish new content. This does not mean change your homepage copy once a week; that falls into the over optimization category. Instead, publish a blog that you update as frequently as possible with quality content about your industry or company specifically.
If you have fallen victim to a bad SEO agency, or you have realised the sin of your own actions, fear not. You can be saved! In the words of the almighty Google itself “Creating good content pays off.” If you are starting to see your website fall further into the internet oblivion that is the second page of Google results, creating fresh, quality content will help reverse this trend.
Keeping up with exactly what is good SEO and what is now considered Black Hat can be tricky. Let Impulse Creative help! Download our free eBook Modern SEO and learn all about the state of the SEO industry today.