RethinkYour.com Podcast



017. Common Reasons for Website Traffic Drop

by
info@jewelerwebsites.com

released February 2, 2021
(recorded January 29, 2021) - 1 hour, 33 minutes



A drop in your organic traffic from search engines can happen at any time. Sometimes it's because Google is measuring things differently, sometimes your competitors are doing things differently, sometimes you can't figure out what's happening.

Let's look at a few common scenarios.

1. Website redesign

We see this all the time. Whenever you redesign your website you'll always see a drop in traffic.

You have to set up 301 redirects from old URLs to new URLs.

It take a while for Google to read and understand your pages again.

If your new website is using different types of javascript or features, they might not work as you expect them to work.


2. Changes with Google

Algorithm changes.

Changes based on user behavior
• What's relevant today? Covid news?
• Evergreen content might be moved higher or lower in search results
• Dated blogging content might be moved higher or lower in search results
• New content types might take priority, like stories or video
• Changes in understanding UX design, that's user design, and how people are using those designs. Sounds like a good time to examine if your UX is up to date with user expectations.


3. Competitor improvements

Has your competitor changed their website in the last 3 to 6 months? Have they changed strategies? Changes on their website might have taken a little while to change how they appear in search results, but when they do it can cause your ranking to drop.

If they haven't done anything visible, then they might have improved the speed of their site, or maybe they have more new links to their website.


4. Unknown technical issues

Server issues
DNS issues
Slowdowns with your hosting company that you are unaware of
If your site is having these problems you will see some errors in your Google Search Console account, or if you use pagespeed testing tools.
The SEO tool we have at jewelryseo.net will also do a technical analysis for you.


5. Figure out where you've lost traffic

Go into Google Analytics and look at your traffic sources.

You can compare different time periods, like the current month to the previous month. Or the current month to the same month last year. Even a year to year comparison.

Then you can look at the traffic sources in that comparison.

What has dropped?
• Email referrals?
• Website referrals?
• Direct traffic? (people typing in your domain name directly)
• Organic traffic (from search results)
• Paid (did you stop paying for ads)
• Social media (did you stop posting, or did you change what you are posting, or did the social network change their rules)

AT: 02/02/2021 03:42:55 PM  
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