What to do when there is a drop in organic traffic?
A decline in organic traffic can be a major concern for any Web site owner. When you notice a decline in visitors through search engines, it can affect the success of your website. However, it is important not to panic, but to understand where the decline is coming from and how to fix it. In this article, we explain the possible causes of a decline in organic traffic and offer a step-by-step approach to analyze and fix this problem.
Analyze the cause of the decline in organic traffic
The first step in addressing a decline in organic traffic is to analyze the cause. There are several reasons why your organic traffic may be declining. It may have to do with changes in search engine algorithms, outdated content, technical problems on the website, or new competition disrupting your keyword position.
Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console:
These tools can help you identify trends and anomalies in your traffic. By examining your traffic data, you can see which pages have experienced the most decline and which keywords are generating fewer clicks. Google Search Console offers detailed insights into keywords and their performance, allowing you to figure out which pages and search terms are contributing to the decline.
Check keywords, referring domains and page views:
Your keywords may not be as effective as before, or your website may not be receiving quality backlinks. Referring domains are important for maintaining authority and rankings in search engines. Check for changes in backlinks to your website.
Impact of recent algorithm updates:
Google is constantly updating its search algorithms. It is important to understand if a recent update has negatively affected your rankings. Google Trends provides insight into search behavior and can help identify new search trends or shifts in the market.
Identify and solve technical SEO problems
After analyzing your keyword performance and algorithm changes, it’s time to look at technical SEO. Technical problems can have a significant impact on your organic traffic, so it’s important to identify and resolve them quickly.
Check for technical errors:
Use tools such as Google Search Console or Screaming Frog to identify crawl problems, broken links, or other technical errors on your website. Problems with your sitemap, robots.txt or pages that are not indexed properly can prevent search engines from crawling your website optimally, leading to a decrease in traffic.
Improve the speed and usability of your website:
A slow website can deter users and affect your ranking in search engines. Make sure your website loads quickly by optimizing images and removing unnecessary scripts. Also make sure you have a user-friendly interface and navigation. Wondering exactly how to improve this? Then read this article.
Optimize for mobile devices:
With the increasing use of mobile devices, responsive web design is essential. If your website does not work well on smartphones and tablets, it can negatively affect both the user experience and your SEO. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive to different screen sizes.
Structured data:
Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines better understand the content of your pages, making it more likely that your page will appear in top search results. This can have a positive effect on your visibility in search results.
Optimize your content and keyword strategy
Content is one of the most important factors for SEO. If your organic traffic has dropped, your keyword strategy may no longer be as effective. Here are some ways to optimize your content and keywords:
Keyword research:
Do thorough keyword research to identify new search terms and search intentions. The keywords you were ranking well on before may not be the right ones now. Use tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends to discover search trends and adjust your content accordingly.
Review old content:
Review your existing content and look for ways to improve it. Are there outdated facts you need to update? Can you add additional value by providing more detailed information? By re-optimizing old articles, you can improve their search rankings without creating new content.
Focus on quality:
Avoid keyword stuffing. This is the excessive repetition of the same keyword in your website content. It is important to incorporate keywords naturally into your text. Google appreciates content that is well written and adds value to the reader. So focus on quality over quantity. Are you curious about how to write quality content? Then read this blog.
Strategies to restore traffic
After you’ve analyzed the causes of the decline and made technical and content improvements, it’s time to take action and restore your traffic.
Promote your content:
Consider actively promoting your content through social media ads or Google Ads. This can help drive fast traffic to your website while your organic search results stabilize again. Use UTM tags to track the performance of your ads and campaigns. UTM code is a piece of text added to the end of a URL to track the statistics and performance of a specific digital marketing campaign.
Implement SEA campaigns:
In addition to SEO, you can also SEA (Search Engine Advertising) to increase your visibility. Combining organic and paid search results can help your website generate traffic again.
Increase your presence in Google Discover:
Google Discover offers the ability to display your content in users’ search results without them actively searching. This can be a powerful way to increase your reach, especially if your content is visually appealing.
Link building:
Link building is the process of generating links (or having them generated) from external Web pages (also called backlinks or inlinks) to a specific Web site. This can help restore your organic traffic. Obtaining quality backlinks can increase your website authority, improving your search rankings and increasing your traffic.
A drop in organic traffic can be challenging, but it is also an opportunity to improve your website and come back stronger. By analyzing the cause of the drop, fixing technical SEO issues, optimizing your keyword strategy and employing link building, you can restore and even improve your traffic. It is important to regularly monitor your website and maintain a strong content strategy.
Need help analyzing and restoring your organic traffic? Contact PureDigital for professional support. We offer customized solutions for your website and help you improve your SEO strategies. Also check out our SEO Training And improve your own skills in this area!
