Most people who are new to internet marketing freak out as soon as they publish a new post/page, see it on Google and then watch it either appear further in the results or just flat out disappear.
Do NOT worry.
This is called the Google dance and the duration of it can last anywhere from days, to weeks and even months! There are many factors which contribute to how short/long this process is. Obviously we want it to be as short as possible which will be the focus of this post.
First off, what exactly is the Google dance?
It’s a normal process every single website/blog goes through when it starts ranking in the search engine. Most of the time, you may see your website rank on say page 2, then re-appear on page 4, then up to 3, then down again and in many cases disappear/re-appear.
Overtime however if you follow the proper procedures, you can expect the duration of the Google dance to steadily shorten. We’ll be covering that below, but first you need to understand another important component of this subject:
Factors that affect the length of the Google dance:
The age of your website: The younger your website, the longer you’ll experience the Google dance. This is just standard procedure every new website/blog owner has to go through.
How much content is on it: The more content/pages/posts you have, the more often you’ll get ranked on Google. Proportionally, the more content you have, the less and less you’ll experience the Google dance.
The QUALITY of your content: Anyone can write up content, but few can actually write quality content. What does that mean? It means you write information that is engaging, controversial, interesting to readers such that it gets them to bookmark, comment and share your content with others. As a rule of thumb, you should follow some basic guidelines when writing content. Generally, the higher the quality of your content, the less you should experience the Google dance.
Keywords you’re targeting: Very important factor here. So many people chase the most popular keywords, neglecting to see that most of them are very competitive, meaning it’s going to be VERY difficult to rank high under them.
If you can find low competition keywords and write content related to it, you can rank much faster and higher on Google and at the same time experience the Google dance less than you would if you were to chase other keywords.
The market your website is targeting: When creating a website/blog, it’s much better to target a niche (specific market), then a broad market. There is less competition there, including more profitable and LOW competition keywords.
Sometimes however, a niche will be very competitive and that can determine the duration of the Google dance. Let’s take 2 examples of niches:
- A) Best toys for toddlers.
- B) Make money online (MMO).
Both examples are niches, but the MMO one has much more people in it trying to succeed in it, meaning there’s plenty of blog posts, websites and people targeting similar keywords competing for the same audience (the MMO niche has lots of competition). This means if your website is targeting the MMO niche, you’re going to see the Google dance occur longer than if you were to target the first niche.
How long can this last? Some say several months. Maybe 3. In my experience and this website which is founded on the MMO niche, 6 months is a more accurate estimate. The less competitive your niche/market, the shorter the Google dance will be and vice versa.
Now this doesn’t mean you won’t rank until month 3, 4, ect… If you find low competition keywords, you can see rankings within a few days, but understand that to reach that first page will take time!
Are you getting comments/likes on your blog posts? This really goes back to writing quality content because one affects the other. If Google sees your website is getting comments/likes and social engagement, it will rank you higher/faster.
How to shorten the duration of the Google dance:
- Target a niche!
- Target low competition keywords RELATED to the niche. Full tutorial.
- Always share your blog posts/content with social networks.
- Write quality content.
- Write a lot of content within each post/page. I noticed the longer my posts, the faster they get ranked. I think a safe number would be at least 1,000 words per post. I’ve seen posts which had less not get ranked/fast or even high, add content to them and saw dramatic improvement.
- Always, and I mean ALWAYS add new content in the form of posts/pages. I used to add new posts on a semi-daily basis. Now I do it every single day. Adding more content gives your website more authority. More authority = higher rankings and less time experiencing the Google dance.
These tips should be more than enough. Remember, at first the Google dance WILL happen, but overtime as your site fills up with quality information, it will lessen.
Also understand that even if you reach the first page of Google or even position 1, it doesn’t mean it will always stay there. There’s always going to be competitors trying to beat you. The best way to stay at the top of the “food chain” is to keep writing content that helps people. This will translate into long term rankings and success.
If you do everything correctly, you should see:
A steady growth in ranks/traffic.
Less Google dancing of your website’s posts. You probably won’t always reach page 1 right away, but you’ll see your content rank faster/higher and jump around a lot less.
Is there anyway to avoid the Google dance?
I don’t think so. A lot of people try to use black hat marketing techniques to speed up the process. I advise against this as Google does not like these practices and will punish your website if they catch you. Believe me when I say it isn’t worth the risk. We’re looking for long term results here and the safest way to get them is to play by the rules and write quality content often!
Again don’t freak out if you don’t see your website. You can always check if it’s being ranked via a few methods:
1. You can put into quotes your website/blog and Google it. If it appears, it’s been indexed.
2. You can type up keywords which your posts/pages target and see where they rank. This may take awhile. I actually prefer using this tool as it spots which position your website is ranking in.
If you follow all of the above methods, you’ll be fine! If you’re not trying to cheat the system and growing your website the honest way like I showed above, you’ll be fine too. It just takes time. If you have any questions on the Google dance, please leave your question below. I hope this tutorial has helped you 🙂
This google dance has been a real struggle. What to write. What not to write. Where it is going and will it ever get ranked. Many times I wonder if there are enough ideas to discuss in a topic. Gets a little hard and I am doing my own dance trying to keep up.
Do you write on different subjects that relate to your site or continually write on one idea? How would Google rate a site that has a diversity of ideas around one topic?
Well let me explain it this way:
Since my site is tackling the make money online topic, I do cover the basic idea of how it’s done, in for example, this article. But I do not repeatedly write the same articles because I would just be throwing out the same content.
I do however diversify and branch out on this topic by doing product reviews and covering different strategies other people suggest to succeed in this topic. By doing this, I have a wide range of topics to cover and provide a diverse, yet relevant to my niche content. This is what Google likes. I hope this answers your question.
Now regarding the first part of it and you struggling with the Google dance, you need not worry about it so long as your content is good and your keywords in the title are low competition. If you do all of that, simply let your article rank as Google wants it to rank.
If nothing else, extra comments, more content on the said article and interlinking to it through other articles on your site WILL help it boost in rank. But don’t over focus too much on one particular article if it’s not ranking high because the attention you put on that may take away from time you could have written other articles.
Hey, thanks sharing this great article on google dance. So, I guess there’s no possible to way to avoid the google dance.
Must be a little bit frustrating to see your rank suddenly drop and even disappear after a while, but you can also recover. Anyways thanks for sharing, and I wish you good luck on your journey
It is until you realize it is totally normal Victor. Every website goes through this SEO procedure.
Well, you taught me something new today. Thanks for sharing this information. I had no Idea why some of my articles kept moving around. And it’s good to know that there are good ways to help with this. I also never heard about Black Hat marketing, glad I know now and will keep far away from it.
Hi Vitaliy,
First of all thanks for the great post. I did actually learn a lot from it.
I see that google dance on my site for a long time. But that is my mistake. I did not commit myself enough in order to see any success. I blogged just couple of times per couple a months, which is far from enough.
Now, I am much more responsible and I’m doing almost daily posting. Can you tell me what do you think about backlinks? Are they important at all?
All the best,
Nenad
I have a very negative position against backlinks Nenad, unless they are done freely by other people linking to your site, without you having to ask them.
What you’re doing right now with daily posting is exactly the right approach, keep at it.