Rankings going down and down. Help!

[EcomLkwd]

I just  joined a company as an in house seo. When I looked at their rankings I noticed a downward trend. How can I reverse that? I'm currently working on their onsite optimization, but is there anything more that I can do?

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[rightmove]

Hi Rachel,

What has changed between then and now?

Both off site and on site? Have there been any changes?
have you added new content or is the content static?
have you lost backlinks or have your competitors all gained links?
What is the quality of your link profile? are your links "spammy"?
Is your social engagement on going or "ok we got a twitter account, now what?"
are you adding links faster than you are losing links?

There are just so many variables but these are just a few questions to ask yourself.

Word to the wise, keep tabs on your competitors, how many links are they adding on a monthly basis? are you actively competiing and beating their link building efforts? How often are they adding content? are you?

You know the joke about out running a bear or out running your friend? Well, same mentiality applies.
In SEO you don't have to beat the system, just your competitors. Whatever they do, you do, just do it better, faster, harder and with more quality and care.

[ChadBreezy]

**1.) You want to check first for duplicate content issues. **

*SEO MOZ has a great tool suite here that ran a full analysis of the website from multiple angles.

**2.) You want to study their link profile and anchor text. **

If they were hit hard (not due to duplicate content), then their website probably got smashed to bits by Google Penguin algorithm. This is an over-optimize-algorithm that Google used to destroy websites that had thousands of links using exact anchor matches.

*You want to use brand anchor text and mix up your anchors when link building

*Research link prospecting and anchor text diversity

*Use majestic seo or ahrefs to study your link profile and determine if the site engaged in this damaging link building tactics.

*You certainly can try to disavow links through Google Webmaster Tools, but I don't think it is a good use of time.

*Focus on high quality directories (tons of curated list online just search), free directories, press releases using the website brand name anchor text

3.) General Marketing Persona Map - Learn Who Your Target Consumers Are

Also user site bounce rates can really become a sign of website that has worthless content. I would asses the goals of the website, product, and services and start with a general marketing persona map for surfers/customers. This is huge because it will lead to a better conversation algorithm to help you build out a marketing plan to reach your target audience at each stage of their though process and decision making.

**4.) Plan your content map and **strategy

You need to setup a schedule for custom content creation, on page call to actions, and a syndication schedule to help generate social signals of engagement to your website.

Also your blog need to establish Authorship and put a face behind the content you produce.

After doing this you need to create ideas for link bait opportunities like guest posting and info-graphics if possible.

*To do all of this, I suggest getting organized and setup a team of people within your organization to help you with each stage of the project.

This will keep you busy for a while! Hope this helps. Don't be afraid to Google the concepts I mentioned if you don't understand. This is how I learned back in 2004!

[EcomLkwd]

Thank you Chad for your thought out reply.

[ChadBreezy]

You can also message me if you have pains with certain parts of your project. I have tons of resources I can help you connect to. Good luck