Ranking dropped with no page changes

[mozmemberanon]

My rank for a keyword went from ranking #1 to #22.  The page grade for this keyword is A, there was no site structure changes.  The only thing I can see is that tumblr and reddit and other sources are now listed for this keyword and it's difficulty went from the mid-low teens to 28%.  However, even given that, I do not a see a reason for this keyword alone to fall so far.  It was giving us a ton of traffic, in fact, most of our organic search results came from this term for nearly two months.  And 2 weeks ago for no reason, we were pushed to page 3.  Has anyone else had similar experiences how do you counter it, and what can we do?

[anthonydnelson]

This type of fluctuation occurs all the time. Google results don't stay static for long.

How do you get back on top?

1. Make sure your website is the best page on the web for that query. Truly think about how can you make it better for your users, not the search engine? Does it need to be updated regularly? Do visitors to your page show good engagement - can you improve it? Can you get your site to load faster?

2. Get positive signals pointing to your page. External links being the most important, social signals won't hurt.

[BlueprintMarketing]

I am just telling you that I think Anthony's answer is one of the best ones out there.

Load time matters a lot you should look into what your visitors are seen by using RUM speed testing you can see exactly what any visitor had to deal with speed wise for free up to 20,000 hits a month

https://www.pingdom.com/free/

remember to add the RUM code to your site if you want to measure this.

that data can tell you if you need to switch hosting companies optimize your website code or if you're having no trouble at all.

Social signals from Google + tend to be more powerful than those from twitter and Facebook however definitely do not leave out twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn for that matter. All social traffic is a positive.

Have a good strong look at your analytics using a product like kiss metrics or mixed panel ( kiss metrics & mix panel is able to do  track individuals) mixed panel has a free tier

looking at where people click on your website when it's visiting is extremely valuable. Crazy Egg is a fantastic tool to find out whether or not for UX for site layout is what's best for the visitor you can then use A/B testing with a tool like

Visual Website Optimizer  to find the perfect layout to have your customers convert or sign-up do it ever does he want them to do.

You can save money on these tools using http://moz.com/perks

I hope this helps,

Thomas

[Nobody1530189339743]

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

That'll help you with page load times.