A Google Update Killed Me – Can I Make a Comeback?

It’s the worst-case scenario that millions live in fear of every single day. You open up your analytics account, check out the traffic from last couple of days and notice a drop of 50%, 75% or even up to 90% – literally overnight. And once you establish that this wasn’t a server problem, you come to the terrifying realisation that Google has worked its magic with another update and sent your site spinning into oblivion.

So of course, this is the moment when doom and gloom takes over and proactivity goes out of the window. Your link building ‘efforts’ and chosen SEO copywriting services have killed-off your website and all hope is lost…right?

Not necessarily – there’s always every possibility of a comeback, just as long as you’re willing to put in the effort and haven’t done something truly hideous/illegal that’s left you banned for life!

Don’t Argue :: Google Update

Probably the worst thing you can do after being dealt a bum-hand by Google is to try your luck at arguing with the powers that be. If history has taught us nothing else, it’s that doing so will earn you absolutely nothing positive and could make your lot even worse. Google doesn’t backtrack and barely even bothers with a non-prewritten response to these kinds of thing, so you’ll only be wasting your time and putting your remaining credit at risk.

Don’t Point the Finger :: Google Update

In the same vein as the above, don’t waste a second of time or energy pointing the finger of blame at anyone else. It doesn’t matter if you think your SEO copywriting services have let you down or you’re convinced that Google’s decision to demote your site was unfair, it’s happened and there’s really nothing you can do about it. You won’t get a refund from the SEO partners, Google won’t apologise and all the moaning in the world won’t make it any better. Instead, shout and swear your head off for a few minutes and then get ready to stage your comeback.

Aim First for Square One :: Google Update

Next up, you have to accept the rather painful realty that you aren’t actually back at square one with your site, but somewhere in the negatives. If you have had your credit stripped or received a black mark against your name, you actually have to work to get back to square one first rather than going out and looking for ways to once again climb the ladder. Technically, this means that even a new business that went live 24 hours ago has a distinct advantage over you, but the sooner you accept this, the better. What this means in practice is assessing why you ended up in trouble in the first place and removing/repairing the offending items as fast as possible. If it was black-hat link building, get rid of the links. If it was poor copy, remove it. You need to erase your mistakes before once again gunning for glory.

Slow Steps Forward :: Google Update

When the time comes to once again put your SEO campaign into effect, get ready to again practice going against all your instincts. In all likelihood you’ll want to blast your site with all the SEO goodness you can possibly throw at it, replace and the links you did away with and rewrite the copy you realised was letting you down all at once. Sadly though, this is usually a recipe for disaster and can see you tarred with the spam brush if you try to do too much too soon. Take your time, use the necessary SEO tools to make sure of the authority of any sites you link yourself to and remember that 2013 is way more about quality than quantity.

Reach Out :: Google Update

And the last link in the chain is the one you’d logically have expected to come first – reaching out to Google for advice and possible reconsideration. You can only do this after your site has once again become a pillar of wholesomeness and enough time has passed for you to rebuild your name organically. Be careful however as this kind of action can lead to a full review of your site carried out by a real person rather than a bot, which means that if there’s in anything less than 100% upstanding and outstanding about its content and purpose, you could end up worse-off than before.

This article was brought to you by Lisa Morton on behalf of Websearchseo. Find out more about WebSearch SEO’s range of innovative Internet marketing and organic SEO strategies.