And we all fall down….

Whenever there is news that Google will soon roll out another update in its algorithm, there is a panic attack among most webmasters.

Will my website get affected this time?
What do I do if my rankings fall?

In your mind you have followed all the SEO best practices so apparently there seems no reason for your website’s ranking to get affected. But can you be a hundred percent sure about that?

Two things that you should not do, in case your rankings drop:

1. PANIC
2. And start making random changes to your website without doing a thorough analysis.

There are some things you cannot control…for instance a good authoritative site dropped your link, or a link that was earlier considered good does not get the same certificate from Google anymore because it may be linked to some not so good neighbors.

After all whenever there is a major update, some innocents get affected too. Something like, even if you are driving in your lane at the right speed, and following all the rules, if a car comes and hits you, what can you do, the least you can do is try to save yourself as much as you can at the last moment, provided you know something is going to hit you!

If your ranking in Google takes a nose dive, it is bound to impact you negatively because Google still accounts for 90% of traffic from search engines. If you were ranking in the top three in Google then it is certainly a major blow to your search traffic.

If that were the case I recommend that you do a thorough analysis of your incoming and outgoing links, your content and all other elements of your website, whether you have over-optimized your site or under optimized it, so on and so fore… It can’t be salvaged in a day but your analysis will help you in correcting anything that maybe frowned at.

All is not lost; the good news is that there are various other ways of attracting relevant traffic to your website. One of the major internet marketing techniques today is to focus on traffic from social media. The Social Media sites, have in the recent years gained a huge amount of popularity. Instead of depending upon only search engines or just one source of traffic, it makes immense sense now, even more so, to explore and find other online ways of reaching out to your prospective customers.
In addition to search engines, some of the options of attracting traffic to your website are:

1. High traffic directories/portals
2. Social media sites
3. Blogs

There are quite a few directories that provide business listings for global and local businesses, get your site registered there, and consider paying for such registrations if the traffic that they can send you is very relevant. Portals that cater to information related to your line of business can also be another platform through which you can reach out to people. Blogging, following blogs, and helping bloggers will certainly give you some amount of exposure.Blog till you drop!

Social media sites such as, LinkedIn for business networking, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Stumble Upon, Digg… the list goes on, are perhaps the best source for relevant traffic, today. Tapping into social networking sites will help you reach out to a wider audience.

The article, Marketing through social media, will provide you more insight into Social Media marketing.

Just remember that banking on one source for all your traffic requirement is a bit like having just one major customer, what if the customer does not renew the contract?

Safety in numbers they say, and I strongly recommend that you consider other sources of traffic for your business. Re-evaluate, re-strategize, and re-plan your online marketing activities. And more importantly, do not let these updates get you into a panic mode. Take that as a challenge and who knows a rank drop may be actually a boon for you because now you will seriously consider other sources of traffic instead of just banking on Google!