I have a free printable calendar websites that has had pretty good natural rankings in google over the past few years. I have not really made any updates to the site in a couple of years. Starting in late January / early february is has been steadily dropping from the first page for terms like "free calendars" to the 3rd or 4th page. So I need to start actively working on some search engine optimization. Since site is really more focused on quickly allowing users to create printable calendars, I'm not sure there is a lot of content building I could do. But I have been reading a bunch on SEO the past few days and have been getting so many mixed messages of where to start. Looking at things like anchor text distribution, back link building, guest posting, keyword densities. In your opinion what are the top 2-3 things you would focus on to start gaining back ground in the search engine rankings?
Acquire unique, high-quality articles and content. Schedule them to be posted on the blog portion of your website (if you don't have one created, you should create one). In each article, include your targeted keywords and make sure they are bolded. Content today is more powerful than ever. That'd be the first step I'd probably do.
If you are on page 3 or 4 for "free cal3ndars" I would say there really can't be too much wrong IMHO and I can say that without needing to know anything as a top 40 on Google for that is what I would call something that can be worked with as you are managaing to maintain a top 40. It is difficult to say what you need to do for sure though without first taking a look at your on site and knowing what you have done off site is also going to have a bearing to of course but top 40 is top 40 so there an't be anything that bad wrong IMHO.
Well in the past I was actually #3 - #5 for the free calendars search term, which was actually a great position since it put you right around the images preview in google, a pretty natural focus point for the eyes. Which I think helped make the site stand out a bit. It is truly amazing all of the SEO information that is out there, the hardest part is deciphering what is still relevant information, and where to get started on the right items that would have the best benefit for time invested.
Even though Articleforce there is clearly in the article game and so biased the advice there isn't a bad idea to consider. You could easily install WP and use good content to help give your site a boost and help feed your site but being able to see what is going on would help to be able to give more in depth advice.