How stable are search engine rankings?

We would all like to be top of the natural listings in all the major search engines.  That is how you would enjoy maximum relevant traffic.  However all your competitors want the same spot, so what should you do when you see a drop in your rankings?

To try to find an answer I looked at the performance of my own site over the last year on 2 measures:

1) Ranking on Google UK for 'web marketing uk'

2) No of top 10 positions on all my major key phrases across major UK search engines.

Here are the results:

Last July it looked as though I had a problem. In fact I did nothing about it for this specific phrase though I continued to update the site and its design. Suddenly Google puts me back near the top though I have now lost some ground in other engines.

Of course no one is fully in control of their own rankings. They depend on changes in the search engine algorithms and on your competitors.  I am often asked how to achieve top spot and to take action as soon as it is lost.  I believe that you should try to create the best long term site and keep it up to date regularly.  Then you should have some faith in the search engines themselves. Of course their will be variation, but their goal is to find the best response for the searcher.  If yours is indeed the best site, the search engines should rank it accordingly or they themselves are not efficient.

There is a danger to reacting too quickly.  You may actually worsen the result!  If the majority of search engines all start to lower your rankings, then of course a full review is required.  One starting point for that is to analyse recent competitive activity to see who is winning out and why.

KEY PRINCIPLE = Ensure your strategy is right and the tactics will normally take care of themselves.