Why your website traffic is dropping and what to do about it

Reasons for a downward trend in your website traffic

A drop in website traffic can be caused by several factors, including recent changes to your website design or content, search engine algorithm updates, technical issues like broken links, poor website performance, a decline in the quality of your content, increased competition from other websites, or even issues with your website analytics tracking code.

It can be discouraging when you see those downward trends, but fortunately there are a number of things you can do to put your website back into the flow.

First, let’s look at some key reasons for declining website traffic:

Search engine algorithm updates

Google frequently updates its algorithm, which can significantly impact your website’s ranking and organic traffic if your content is not optimized for the new criteria.

Many years ago it was common to fill your content with keywords. You remember those awkwardly worded pages, right? Where every ofher word was the title of the page? Well, at some point, Google made a major algorithm change that penalized such content with lower rankings, and many people saw their traffic drop as a result of their sites not showing up as highly ranked as they had previously been.

Fortunately, current SEO practices are a lot less about “tricks” and more about creating content that is a valued resource for your visitors, which brings me to…

Poor quality content

If your content is not relevant, informative, or engaging, visitors might leave your site quickly, leading to lower traffic and potentially a penalty from search engines.

For some website owners/creators, their content stands the test of time. I would say for many others, myself included, it’s best to through your content every year or so for outdated information. That brilliant blog post from 2020 may not be so brilliant now, and could even cost you search rank points.

Pro tip: It’s better to update and republish existing content than to create new content that may compete with the old.

Technical issues

Broken links, slow loading times, website errors, or issues with site navigation can frustrate users and negatively affect your search engine ranking.

Are you keeping up with your website maintenance? When your tools and software are not being updated regularly, your site can get glitchy and buggy and really annoy your visitors. Or worse, it can get hacked and attacked and before you know it, your menu links are sending people to spammy sites and people are calling you up asking you why you are trying to sell them male enhancement supplements.

Website design changes

A major redesign of your website, if not done carefully, can confuse users and lead to a drop in traffic.

When I perform a site redesign, I prioritize preserving the existing SEO of that site if possible (and if desired by the client). One of the ways I do this is map all the urls from the old site to pages and posts on the new site, unless there is content that is definitely not being reflected on the new site.

A mistake I see in website redesigns–especially DIY rebuilds–is where a whole new permalink structure gets created for the new site, but the old links are left without redirects and they all go to error pages in search results. This can definitely hurt your rankings and in turn, decrease your website traffic.

Lack of link building

If you are not actively acquiring backlinks from high-quality websites, your website’s authority and visibility in search results can decline.

If anyone offers to sell you backlinks, please do not be tempted as this can backfire and leave you with lower rankings than before. Building quality backlinks takes time. Here are some ways to build backlinks without taking risky shortcuts.

Increased competition

If new competitors are aggressively marketing similar content, it can draw visitors away from your website.

To determine if this may be happening, do a Google search using your site’s primary key words and see what comes up. If you notice that your site is getting pushed down the list, then the ones above yours are outperforming your site in SEO and marketing. To counteract this, you will need to optimize your content to focus on a specific buyer persona with a very clear call to action on each of your pages.

Seasonal fluctuations

Depending on your niche, traffic may naturally fluctuate based on seasonal trends. Once you’ve been in business for a year or two, you will see patterns emerge and can plan accordingly for each season.

Tracking issues

Sometimes, problems with your website analytics tracking code can lead to inaccurate data, making it appear like your traffic is dropping when it’s not.

You can diagnose this problem by doing the following:

Analyze your Google Search Console

Check for any manual actions, indexing issues, or coverage errors that might be impacting your site. If you have Google Search Console set up with your website, you will receive email alerts when there are indexing issues and coverage errors. You can learn more about these issues and how to validate your fixes for them here.

Review your Google Analytics

Look for trends in traffic sources, bounce rates, and user engagement to identify areas of concern. Google provides a guide for Analytics beginners here.

Check for technical errors

Use website auditing tools to identify broken links, slow loading pages, and other technical issues. You can run a free website audit with Semrush here.

 

What you can do to improve your traffic

Create high-quality content

Focus on producing relevant, valuable, and engaging content that aligns with your audience. Your greatest resource for this would be your existing clients and/or people like them. What are their most pressing questions? These are the ones you need to be answering in your content, and the questions that more of your ideal clients are asking in Google searches. When you are sharing your expertise by answering these questions, you are presenting yourself as a valuable resource for your ideal clients, and they are more likely to come back for more.

Optimize for SEO

Improve your website’s technical SEO by fixing broken links, optimizing meta descriptions, and using relevant keywords.

Promote your content

Share your content on social media, email marketing campaigns, and other relevant platforms. To clarify, your content should live on your website, with teasers and links coming from external platforms. If you are wanting to increase your website traffic, it only makes sense not to put your content in its entirety offsite. Other platforms may come and go, but your website is the only place where you have full control of your content.

Monitor your website performance

Regularly check your website’s speed and usability to identify areas for improvement. If you are loading your site down with heavy images and script, it will definitely affect your load speed. A page load speed of just 3 seconds can result in a 32% increase in the probability of a user bouncing (leaving the site immediately) over a load speed of 1 second.

Stay updated with algorithm changes

Keep yourself informed about Google algorithm updates and adapt your SEO strategies accordingly. Google lists all of their updates here.

Are you feeling overwhelmed?

Addressing a drop in website traffic is not a quick fix, and you may not be clear on the best next steps for your site. If you have a WordPress site and need help navigating your way to the highest leverage solutions, you can book a consultation with me where we will take a look at areas of opportunity for the greatest improvement in your site traffic.