Saving Your Search Rankings

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a sudden drop in your search ranking. I have personally experienced this and have seen other people’s sites suffer the same, unavoidable predicament.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who haven’t had the misfortune of having to deal with such an event, you had best prepare because, like what I have said earlier, this is unavoidable. It may be a major or a minor drop, but it’s best to be prepared.

When such an event happens:

The Golden Rule: Keep calm.
A dip in your search rankings is not the end of the world. Plus, if you let panic take over, you won’t be able to think clearly. You need to keep your mind straight in order to work on your dilemma effectively. Don’t be too impulsive with your actions to fix the problem. Think it through calmly and look at all angles before you do anything.

Always look back
Retrace your steps. Was there anything you did to promote your site that was rather black hat-ish? If so, then Google or other search engines might have picked up on your “not-so-clean” tactics and decided to do something about it. If that’s the case, you can do something to reverse it.

Once you’ve patched things up, contact the search engine site for a reconsideration. You may have a chance to have your site back on their list. If you insist on sticking with your black hat ways, then you’re going to have to live with the consequences it may bring.

Get busy – find workarounds
Your situation won’t improve unless you do something about it. You can try to find other ways to direct visitors towards your site. After all, search engines aren’t the only source of inbound traffic to your site. You can take advantage of social media sites and use them to promote your blog. There are other sources of traffic; you just have to look for them.

How about you, though, how did you handle such a problem?