B (3:46)

Okay?

A (3:46)

Because position one gets 30% of the traffic. Now, for every position below that, it decreases a bit, okay? Which is why you want to be in position one, because then you get the most traffic. But just because your traffic decreases doesn't mean you have an SEO problem. Maybe monthly search volume decreased. Maybe your position stayed the same. Perhaps your position improved.

B (4:09)

Okay?

A (4:10)

But monthly search volume decreased and you lost traffic. Not necessarily an SEO concern. Now, now, the question is going to be, well, how can I tell? Okay, I'm going to answer that question for you. You can tell by tracking your position. Okay, Your position, or the phrase is serp. S, E, R, P Search engine result page. It just means, where do you rank? So when you hear somebody describing SERPs or SERP, it just means your rank. That's all it means. So we have an episode, and I'm gonna put a link in the description. We have an episode called, if you are not tracking your SERPs, you are not doing SEO. I'm not joking when I say this. Tracking your SERPs is the main thing you need to do. And many people do not do it because they either don't know what's possible or they don't know that they have to. So look, what is the reason you do SEO? You do SEO to get to the top of the search engines? What are you doing to gauge your progress? How do you know if you're going up or down? How do you know? Are you checking your keywords every day? Are you entering them and scrolling through the results until you find them? I mean, you can, but that's gonna not be very. It's not gonna be very productive. So what you do is you use a tool called a SERP chart.

B (5:23)

Okay?

A (5:25)

Anyways. Or our SERP tracking tool is a tool that produces a SERP chart. So as I said, we have another episode that talks about this, but there are three things that you need to look for in a SERP chart and I'm going to tell you what they are because there's many SERP tracking tools out there and there's various ones that you probably should not use because they don't do these three things.

B (5:47)

Okay?

A (5:48)

We use a tool called serp fox serp fox s e r p f o x serpfox.com I don't get paid to promote them, okay? I don't get paid to promote them, but we've been using using them for over a decade because they perform all the tasks that a SERP chart needs to do. I'm going to tell you what those are right now. You can use. By the way, you can use any SERP tracking tool. It doesn't matter to me. But it has to do these three things or it's not going to be very helpful to you. So anyways, look, a SERP chart or SERP tracking tool needs to do three things. Number one, it needs to let you select the keywords.

B (6:21)

Okay?

A (6:22)

It needs to let you choose the keywords. So why do I say this? There are some SERP tracking tools that do not let you track your own keywords.

B (6:33)

Okay?

A (6:34)

Does that even make any sense? Of course not. So why would you use the tool that doesn't let you pick your keywords? If you're trying to rank for your specific keywords, you need to know where you rank for those keywords. So make sure that it lets you. Now, if it wants to give you other keywords, that's fine, but make sure it lets you choose your keywords.

B (6:51)

Okay?

A (6:52)

Number two thing that you need to look for in a SERP tracking tool, you need to have individual charts for each keyword. Oh, you know what? Let me tell you what a SERP chart does. First, I think I forgot to say this.

B (7:02)

Okay.

A (7:02)

A SERP chart is like a stock chart. You know, a stock chart, how it shows you the price of a company, and you can look at it and see where it used to be and where it is now. You can see if the price is increasing or decreasing.

B (7:13)

Right?

A (7:13)

A SERP chart does that, but it does it for your position. So you can look at a SERP chart and see where you used to rank and where you rank. And so it's very helpful. It's very helpful. You can tell if your position is increasing or decreasing. So it's pretty useful. Anyways, you need to have an individual chart for each keyword. So here's why I'm telling you this. There are some SERP tracking tools that only show you average position.

B (7:42)

All right?

A (7:42)

Average position is a silly metric that doesn't really have any value. So if you have. Let's say you're only tracking two keywords, okay? Let's say one of them is in position one and one of them is in position 19. It would tell you that your average position is 10. But you have one keyword in one and one keyword in 19. So knowing that your average position is 10, big deal. That doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter. So anyways, you need to make sure that each keyword has an individual chart for that keyword so that you can see where you rank for that keyword and where you used to rank for that keyword.

B (8:19)

Okay?

A (8:20)

And number three, you need to have daily data. Some SERP charts only show you, like, weekly or monthly data. You need daily data. And the reason for this is. And this is a more advanced topic that we're not really gonna talk about right now. But first of all, it gives you more data points. Second of all, there are certain behaviors in a SERP chart that you need to have daily data to determine.

B (8:45)

Okay.

A (8:46)

Actually, you know what? We're gonna talk about this in a minute. I think so anyways, though, if you only have. If your SERP chart only updates itself every week, that's not specific enough. You need it to update every day. So if you open it. So SERP charts usually won't start tracking your keyword until you enter the keyword, right? Cause obviously, why would they do it otherwise? So let's say you started tracking your keywords a month ago.

B (9:09)

Okay?

A (9:10)

And then when you Open that SERP chart for each individual keyword. You should see 30 days worth of data.

B (9:16)

Okay?

A (9:16)

You want to know where you ranked every single day for 30 days or however long it's been.

B (9:21)

Okay?

A (9:21)

So daily data from this topic. I want you to understand that SERP tracking is very important. And again, we use serpfox because it does those three things, but you can use something else. It doesn't bother me if you use a different tool. But SerpVox is great. And the first 10 keywords are free, so there's no. You can't tell me anything to explain why you're not tracking your SERPs, because literally the first 10 keywords are free. So stop listening to this episode, go to SERP fox.com, create an account, enter your URL, enter your 10 keywords, or however many you have, and then come back to this episode.

B (10:00)

Okay?

A (10:00)

And continue listening to it. It's how you track your results.

B (10:05)

Okay?

A (10:05)

The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines. The way you check if you are at the top of the search engines is with a SERP chart.

B (10:12)

Okay?

A (10:13)

You need to have this. Anyways, so now we know. We know how to track our SERPs, and we also know how monthly visitors are determined. Remember, it is a result of monthly search, volume and rank. Okay, so now let's talk about. Because sometimes. Sometimes the reason you're losing traffic is because your SERPs are dropping, your position is falling. Okay, there are four reasons that can happen. We go into these in depth in other episodes, and I'll put a link in the description for those episodes, but let's just describe them very briefly right here. So anyways, there are four reasons that your rank can decrease.

B (10:50)

Okay?

A (10:51)

Number one, penalty. You get a penalty. If you get a penalty, your position's gonna drop and your visitors are going to decrease. Because if you get a penalty, you're not gonna rank anymore. And if you're not ranking anymore, nobody's gonna find your site and you're not gonna get any traffic. So, pretty obvious, right? Like, yeah, right. So anyways, number two, you can lose authority. Now, as you know from grumpy SEO guy, authority is a big ranking factor. Once everything on your site is how it should be, you need to get as much authority as possible. Why? Because authority makes you rank higher. If you are losing authority, and that generally means you're losing backlinks. If you are losing authority, your rank might decrease. Okay, number three, algorithm updates. The third reason that your rank can decline is because of an algorithm update. Algorithm Updates? Well, they do a lot of things. Sometimes they change how authority is calculated. So it's kind of another reason for losing authority. But it's not the same as necessarily losing backlinks. We have other episodes. But an algorithm update can cause your website to decrease. It can also cause it to increase.

B (11:58)

Okay?

A (11:59)

Sometimes people are helped by algorithm updates, but anyways, doesn't matter. And number four, because your competition is upping their SEO game.

B (12:08)

Okay?

A (12:09)

Now, two of these are kind of the same.

B (12:11)

All right?

A (12:11)

Two of these reasons are kind of the same. Have you discovered which two are kind of the same? How about I'll just tell you right now? So I said number two was, you're losing authority, okay? And number four was your competition is doing better SEO. Those are kind of the same, okay? If your competition is doing better SEO, they are gaining authority. If they are gaining authority, that's quite similar to you losing authority, isn't it? Because remember, SEO is about how much authority you have compared to your competition. So if you lose authority, even though that's a different reason, if you lose authority, it's probably because you're losing backlinks, okay? If your competition is increasing their SEO, it's probably because they're gaining backlinks. It doesn't matter that those are different because the relative authority between you is still changing, okay? But overall, it doesn't matter. Look, anyway, here's the point. By tracking your SERPs and checking a SERP chart, you can see what the behavior looks like, okay? Are you decreasing quickly or slowly? Is it bouncing around or is it dropping off a wall?

B (13:13)

Okay?

A (13:14)

Like, different types of SERP behavior indicate different causes of ranking declines.

B (13:22)

Okay?

A (13:22)

So, and again, we go into this another episode, but let me give you one example. Right now, if you see a slow decrease, okay? If you see a slow decrease, that likely means that your competition is increasing their SEO. Why? Because you usually move up, you know, a few positions at a time. And every time some website increases its position, another website has to decrease its position.

B (13:48)

Okay?

A (13:48)

Does that make sense? Every time a website raises its position, another website has to drop its position, okay? If you're in position two and you reach position one, that website that was in position one has to go somewhere. It's probably gonna go down to position two. Make sense? So anyways, I don't really want to get really complex into the reasons and stuff right now, but using a SERP chart can help you identify what your SERP progress looks like, and you can use that to figure out what might be the cause of your rank or your traffic decline. Anyway, when people ask and they say my traffic is decreasing, what's the cause? I usually ask can you post a SERP chart? And generally they never do because they don't have one. You need to be tracking your SERPs. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.