Constant ups and downs in keyword ranking can be frustrating when you just can't figure out why. While fluctuations in ranking may look complicated at first look, they may be hinting at certain growth opportunities that online eCommerce store owners definitely should not overlook!
Competitor content updates
Keeping an eye on your keyword ranking also means keeping an eye on your competitors’ content. If your keyword rankings are constantly fluctuating, this may mean that there is competition in your queries. There could be two ways the changes in your keyword rankings may be related to your competition.
First, your competitors may be updating their pages to keep higher rankings. It could also be the other way around. Changes in your competitors' pages due to, for example, product updates, deleted or added pages may be causing an increase or decrease in your competitors’ rankings which inevitably affects yours.
Secondly, there may be a sudden surge in new competition in a specific query. This could mean the introduction of new eCommerce websites into the game or it could be old competitors entering new keyword territories through their SEO strategy.
When search engines detect newly launched eCommerce websites that compete in your chosen keyword categories this will also affect your rankings. This means you should be aware of the ventures of your competition.
However, this does not mean frantically checking your keyword rankings every hour. This would not give you an accurate picture of the competition. Being informed of weekly and monthly changes in your keyword rankings will be much more efficient for a holistic perspective. You should also be aware of the pages and the type of content your competitors put out. For this, you should have access to a trustworthy keyword rank tracker like heybooster.
heybooster notifies you of any sudden changes in your keyword rankings. Your SEO journey will become a walk in the park with heybooster’s weekly and monthly keyword ranking reports to make your job the easiest!
Search intent changes
Search intent, i.e. why users search for specific queries, can change over time. This could be related to keyword trends, user location, time of search during the day, month or year etc.
If search intent changes across time and place for your chosen keywords, you should make note of the differences and possibly create alternative content for specific times and locations to improve your rankings.
The best way to figure out the search intent for any keyword is to search for them in your chosen engines and then analyze the content that appears on the first page. There are 4 main types of search intent: Informational, navigational, transactional and commercial.
Informational intent will be looking for answers to “how to” questions, definitions or data. Navigational intent will be looking for a certain website. Transactional intent will be looking mostly to buy a specific product. Commercial intent will be looking for information about certain services or products like brand or product reviews. These intents could also overlap in certain cases or may transition into one another.
When the change is due to a keyword trend, you will observe a sudden increase in the ranking of certain keywords. Although it may be hard to predict these keyword trends, the smartest thing to do is to be on the lookout for them, especially through social media.
This way when a certain keyword trend appears, you will be quick to notice and will be able to benefit from the changes easily.
Google algorithm updates
Google algorithm is an ever-changing phenomenon that may be hard to keep up with for online eCommerce store owners. It is constantly changing and updating itself. One of the biggest motivations for algorithm changes is to improve the user experience and bring forth the most relevant content for every search.
This means that sometimes your content that was ranked high on the SERP may decrease in ranking due to the increased accuracy of the algorithm.
For example, your pages that appeal to informational search intent but which at the same time had been flagged as appealing to commercial intent may be categorized as strictly informational after an algorithm change causing your page to slightly decrease in ranking.
If this ends up being the case, you can go back and change your content according to the highest-ranked results on search queries to adapt your content to algorithm changes.
heybooster helps you track the ranking of your web pages to make sure you are not missing out on opportunities for improvement!
Technical SEO problems
If you notice fluctuations in your keyword rankings and cannot detect any changes in the algorithm or your competitors’ content, the problem may be on the technical side.
Duplicate Content
One of the biggest technical SEO problems that may affect the keyword rankings of your eCommerce website pretty badly is duplicate content. If your content appears on more than one web page identically, search engines will really really hate these pages.
Broken Internal Links
There may also be some broken internal links on your online eCommerce store. This is also a huge problem as this will prevent search engines from crawling your website and therefore, decrease your rankings. Make sure all your internal links are good to go.
Problems with Titles and Descriptions
Another technical SEO problem that online eCommerce store owners come up against is problems with the web page titles and descriptions. You should double check if there are any duplicates in your title tags or any tags or descriptions that are missing. These could severely decrease your keyword rankings on search engines.
Problems with Mobile Version
You may have an amazing desktop design for your eCommerce website where everything functions perfectly. However, if the mobile version of your online store is botched, you may see some disappointing keyword rankings. Make sure the mobile version of your website is user-friendly.
Content updates on your website
When you publish new content on your online eCommerce store, your keyword rankings change pretty soon. This is because once search engine crawlers find your new content and index it, they will also rank it according to its relevant keywords, linked pages and connections to other content on your website.
This, of course, means that the ranking of the pages on the rest of your eCommerce store will also change when you put out new content. It’s almost like a chain reaction. Every content you create affects the rest of your pages.
The same will be true if you remove content from your eCommerce website. There may be outdated content that is still available on your website that you may decide to remove. If outdated, such content may be causing lower keyword rankings for your website too. Removing outdated content will definitely benefit the rankings of your other pages.
When you add or remove content on your website, you may want to keep keyword tracking throughout.
heybooster is the best help that you can ask for when it comes to tracking keyword rankings. You can see the changes in the rankings of your pages and get weekly and monthly SEO reports that you can customize according to your needs.
heybooster will track your progress day and night to make sure you are on track. Sign up now!
