Higher rank created a quick boost but it didn't last..

[Mariannag7282]

I made a few changes to my website which bumped it up to 3rd place for the main keyword and brought it up to the first page for some of the other keywords.  I saw a spike in traffic and conversions for 2 days, but now it went down significantly again. How can I research the cause of this?

[EGOL]

Sit tight.

Google has thousands of servers responding to queries and new data (rankings) can take time to propagate.

Also, Google usually has several percent of their servers returning experimental data.

By this time next week you should have a better idea of what is happening.

[Mariannag7282]

Thank you - so generally how long should I wait to see accurate results from the SEO work that I did?  Also, are there test environments for keyword ranking?  I'm always a little nervous making a change, fearing that its going to produce the opposite effect.

[EGOL]

SEO work takes variable amounts of time to produce results.

PR7 links are followed daily... PR1 links are followed infrequently.  Your site might not be crawled often.

So, SEO work could produce results within 48 hours or it could take a month or more.

Pay attention to your work and less to your rankings.

[Mariannag7282]

How do I know if what I'm doing is right or wrong then?

[AlanMosley]

Take stats, dont panic and move too fast, let your results steady before you move again.

[EGOL]

Great question....

SEOs must become comfortable with "dealing with uncertainty".

Search engines don't reveal how they rank websites so the best thing that you can do is to study what they do reveal, study the opinions of trusted SEOs (such as the guides and articles on SEOmoz), and ask questions in a forum like this one.

Most important, you must study continuously to stay up-to-date.

Keep in mind that much of the advice that you will receive will be wrong and don't trust advice that is very old.

Most of the decisions that I make on running my site are made with a level of uncertainty.  However, before I make major moves I communicate with a few people that I trust to hear their opinions.

Remember, it is not how many people agree it is who you are listening to - and even they are wrong some of the time.