Where do I go from here?

[ConservationM]

The keywords report has informed me that my company has dropped significantly for a few keywords that we were doing well for previously. How can we go about increasing our keyword rankings again? We have tried content writing through blogs and articles, neither of which seem to have the same effect as they did before the Panda updates. In addition, we are optimizing our product pages, including the meta titles, meta descriptions, and product descriptions. Should we focus more now on social media, such as using certain keywords in Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr posts? Are there any other ways we can increase our keyword rankings?

[DeptAgency]

Hi Jaishree

It's hard to say without looking at the actual website and SERP's but I'd like to share some thoughts:

I would never use a blog to rank for your most important keywords. It will probably not have as high a conversion rate as your product pages, and it's pages are usually not optimized for a single query. Use your blog to rank for the longtail keywords that do not require a single optimized landingpage.

Also social media is not the way to go when you're looking for better rankings (I think). Don't get me wrong, it's great for driving traffic and building your brand but I personally don't think it will do any good for your rankings in the short term.

So what would I do? When on page optimization is finished, I normally have a look at the SERP's and see if I can understand why I rank where I rank. That is, are pages above you technically better? Is their off-site SEO better than yours? Try to analyse this and the next logical step in your SEO strategy will present itself. the comparison feature in OSE is great for this.

One thing that could make a difference is adding a few (only a few!) deep links to your product pages with optimized anchor texts. However, make sure you only do this if you have a strong healthy link profile because otherwise you're bound to be eaten alive by the Penguin!

Best of Luck,

Sven Witteveen
Expand Online

[DesignbysoapLtd]

I would aim for a high quality, content based link-building campaign, using (mainly) your brand name as anchor text in order to avoid over-optimisation penalties.

Here's a superb post featuring numerous high quality link-building methods:

http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

And my post on the SEOMoz blog might help you when it comes to producing high quality content that will naturally attract links:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/indepth-guide-to-content-creation-with-infographic

And this post is an excellent introduction to ethical link-building:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building

Hope that helps - good luck with your campaign!

[ConservationM]

Sven and John, thank you very much for your help and fast responses. I am going to get started on employing the methods you both have suggested, and hopefully they will help us turn things around. The tips and resources are definitely appreciated!

[DesignbysoapLtd]

No worries at all, glad we could help!