Why is site dropping in rank after we update it?

[aloley]

One of our sites - supereyes.com - appears to drop in rank after we update it. The client notified us of this today and I've verified that it did indeed drop in Google -- four spots since last week.

He says this happens every time we make changes to the site, but then a week later it will go back up and is usually higher than where it was before. I have not verified this, but I'm very worried it may not rise again

In the past week, we've posted a new blog entry to their site and we've changed some of the content -- specifically, added their locations to the header, added a contact page and put two testimonials in their sidebar.

We've also had someone submitting their site to directories and local business sites like Angie's List and so forth. There are about 16 new backlinks established in the past 2-3 weeks.

Also, I should note, traffic is higher than it's ever been, but the client doesn't look at traffic. They only look at their Google results.

Can anyone offer any insight into what's going on here and if I need to be worried the site won't rise again in the rankings?

[irvingw]

that doesn't sound like significant enough changes to cause a 4 position drop, could just be fluctuations.

careful with the directory site link building! don't link to the homepage if possible.

why is the traffic higher, are the visitors going to any specific landing pages that are well optimized?

I would look into noindex,following the tag and category pages, install the yoast SEO plugin for wordpress and it will automatically do a lot of that for you.

https://www.google.com/#q=site:supereyes.com&hl=en&tbo=d&ei=Q0T4UOzGFsOOrgeciIGwDA&start=70&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41018144,d.bmk&fp=86d36ab695df5dc2&biw=1920&bih=937

a little bit of stuffing in the footer, i would remove that:

Milwaukee LASIK | Milwaukee Eyeglasses | Milwaukee Contact Lenses | Milwaukee Optician | Milwaukee Optometrist | Milwaukee Vision Center | Milwaukee Eye Doctor | Milwaukee Ophthalmology | Milwaukee Intraocular Lens | Milwaukee Cataract | Milwaukee Glaucoma | LASIK in Milwaukee | Eyeglasses in Milwaukee | Contact Lenses in Milwaukee | Opticians in Milwaukee | Optometrists in Milwaukee | Vision Center in Milwaukee | Eye Doctor in Milwaukee | Ophthalmology in Milwaukee | Intraocular Lens in Milwaukee | Cataracts in Milwaukee | Glaucoma in Milwaukee

[aloley]

As far as the traffic, it's going to the home page and then the majority of the top 10 are blog posts on various subjects.

We already do use Yoast.

For the footer, is there a correct number of terms to use there or is the answer to that, don't do it at all? And if so, is there any evidence that it shouldn't be done at all?

I see a lot of people using this tactic.