How To Protect Your Search Rankings From Deteriorating

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There’s a lot of money to be made in the top search positions for certain niches. The problem is, those top positions are hard to maintain. The more competitive your niche, the more difficult it is to protect your rankings from others.

If you neglect the pages on your sites that are ranking well for competitive keywords, they will slip over time. As they slip, so too, will your traffic volume. Less traffic translates into fewer conversions and lower income from your online business.

Let’s nip this problem in the bud. Today, let’s focus on how you can prevent your competitors from usurping your hard-earned positions in the search engines.

Keep Building Incoming Links

Each of your pages and sites has an inbound link profile. This profile includes the number of links pointing to a particular page, and the anchor text used in those links. It also includes the authority of the site pointing to that page. Another key piece of your link profile is the pace with which inbound links grow. If the pace slows down, it implies (in the search engines’ eyes) that you’re losing authority in your space.

This data is used by Google to determine whether your page “deserves” a given position.

Keep building high-quality links to your top-ranking pages. If your competitors’ link profiles begin to outdistance your own, the age of your domain and authority of your site may not be enough to protect your listings.

For more information on link building Read Review on 5000 Backlinks

Add Girth To Your Site

Google considers the size of your site when ranking your individual pages. Essentially, more pages suggests more authority. For this reason, add additional pages on a regular basis and make sure to include them in your normal link structure.

This tactic has the added benefit of expanding your keyword coverage. For example, suppose you’re targeting the keyword “weight loss.” Add pages about “weight loss after pregnancy,” “weight loss for teens,” and similar phrases. This adds girth to your site. As long as the pages are related to your site’s theme, they’ll improve your authority (again, in Google’s eyes).

Improve SERP Clickthroughs And Prevent Visitors From Clicking Back

Here’s an area of search engine optimization that few people talk about. The reason is because there’s a lot of confusion and a lack of reliable data.

First, the higher your clickthrough rate (CTR) from Google’s pages, the more likely Google is to support your page’s current position or push it higher. Second, a lower bounce rate – that is, when people land on your page and hit their browser’s back button – has a similar effect.

If you’re using Google Analytics on your sites, you’ll have this data at your fingertips. Beyond the data, though, it’s important to realize why Google seems to reward a high CTR and low bounce rate. They do so (presumably) because both factors suggest a better user experience. If people are clicking on your search listing, that means they’re engaged by it. If your visitors don’t immediately bounce back to Google, that implies they have found value in your site.

Google has long focused on improving the experience their users have in their search pages. If you help them do that, you can prevent your top rankings from decaying.

Add High-Caliber Content To Attract Natural Links

Some links need to be built proactively. Others accumulate naturally. With your top-ranking pages, you’ll notice a steady stream of new incoming links appearing on their own. This can be due to a lot of factors, but the most important involve your content and page’s exposure.

You already realize that top listings receive more exposure and clicks than lower listings for any given search query. You also know that good content creates trust in your audience. If people find your pages in the top positions and discover high-quality content, they’ll be more likely to link to those pages on their own sites. This improves your link profile, which in turn, further cements your positions.

Add great content to your top-ranking pages. You’ll attract natural links that strengthen your rankings.

Breaking into the top search positions for your space is only one part of the SEO puzzle. You then need to protect those rankings from decay. The good news is that your effort will help protect the income those rankings are generating.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Seo optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.