There are websites to be visited, but the visits can mean different things to different
For multimedia sites, for example, traffic can be a source of revenue from advertising. For e-commerce retailers, traffic translates to direct sales.
Some sites may sell nothing, or they may sell a brand that just for having eyes on your content is enough to count as a victory.
Whatever the subject of your site, traffic = customers.
And in search engine terms, ranking =traffic = customers.
So when your search ranking goes down - or your traffic goes down - that's a problem.
Whether you are a digital marketer, SEO professional, webmaster, or other stakeholder, it might be your responsibility to investigate the issue and figure out how to get things back on track. the right path.
Here are 22 places to start looking if your traffic has gone down and if you need a solution.
1. You are following bad rankings
If your site has been live for many years, your keywords may not be relevant today. Think about your own search behavior and compare it to the keywords that appear in your Search Console data.
Are you using industry or niche terminology that might not be what your potential customers know?
Many people wantedwill have different variations of the same question and still cannot find an answer or solution to their problem.
Google engineers have improved their understanding of natural language a lot. Today, people can type in more natural language to find results. It's easier to categorize these items if you also keep your content in plain language.
Search engines have also detected this phenomenon in recent years. Rather than relying on a few keywords, they rank websites based on full sentences and other elements of more natural language.
Look at your keywords and keyphrases. If you are using old or generic keywords you are following bad rankings and need to update your strategy.
2. Lost links
Another reason whyyour ranking and your search traffic may have dropped is you have lost links.
Search your site for links lost in the past 90 days using a tool (eg Majestic, Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO).
If you have lost a lot of links, this could be the reason for your ranking drop.
There are more questions you should ask about this link loss :
- link lost on the whole site?
- Are the lost links on the same pages of your site where you saw a drop in rankings?
- Has there been a drop in inbound links to your pages that have lost their rank?
- Do you see deleted links to pages on your website that link to other lower ranking pages?
If your inbound links are broken or lost, you will need to determine exactly where these links are co-located and why they are broken.
You can then delete, replace or keep them.
Each link should be checked individually to determine the following steps:
- If the links have been deleted intentionally this could indicate that these were not natural links and could, if they were not already, be flagged and sanctioned by Google . Let those links go.
- Sometimes links break or change during a site update. In these cases, you might have a chance to convince the site owner to restore them.
- If the internal links were replaced by new links to another source, vYou have the option to link to the new source as well.
Remember that you can always replace old links with new ones that work.
To prevent lost links from affecting your rankings in the future, it is worth investing in link monitoring software or programs to actively track lost links. This way you can be proactive and take corrective action before you lose your ranking.
3. Discontinued redirects
If you are launching a new website, migrating to a new server, or making structural changes to your site, you may see your ranking drop, unless you have a 301 redirect plan in place.
Broken redirects are those of all referen professionalscement worst nightmare.
When using a 301 redirect, you need to make sure that XML sitemaps, canonical tags, and links are updated as well.
A 301 redirect is equivalent to a notice change for the web. This notice informs search engines that a page, multiple pages, or your entire website has been moved. You are requesting that your website visitors be redirected to your new address, not your old one.
If done correctly, you won't lose your rankings and you won't be penalized for duplicate content because search engines index both your old and new web addresses.
4. Manual actions
If you notice a sharp and significant drop in the ranking of your website, it could indicate that Google is penalizing your site. The manual actions are applied manually rather than as a result of algorithmic updates.
If your site continues to rank on other search engines like Yahoo or Bing, it's almost a sure sign that you're suffering from a Google penalty.
Whether your penalty is manual or automatic, you I want to fix the problem and have the penalty removed. best way to start is to check notifications from your Google Search Console account .
Look for warnings in the messages menu and in the Manual actions section. Here you 'll find a list of cases where a Google employee has found that certain pages on your website do not follow their instructions. guidelines.
You may find suggestions and information on how to resolve problems.
5. Changes to algorithme
Google is always looking for ways to improve strategies and results by creating algorithm changes . Many sites were affected by these changes and suffered from lower rankings.
To avoid getting crippled by Google updates, use a cross-channel marketing and traffic strategy that includes social media and other marketing channels.
6. Natural changes in search
It may happen that you notice a drop in your ranking in search engines which is not a result of anything directly related to your website. Google has often made changes to the type of results based on user behavior.
For example, if there is a sudden increase in search for a specific topic, Google may first displaynew results and push static content further down.
If your content falls into the second category, you will see a drop in ranking.
You can check Google Trends to see s ' there are changes that could explain these differences.
7. UX changes in Google
Google sometimes changes the UX of search pages to suppress clicks.
Perhaps a Featured Snippet has appeared on a key search result, directing traffic that way. Maybe a search test affected the click-through rate.
Check which terms have been removed and see if anything has changed.
8. Geolocation deviations
Your ranking will be different depending on where the search wasbeen carried out. If you are checking your rankings in one geographic area, you will need to check them in several other areas to get a more accurate and precise understanding of your ranking.
Have you noticed that the results you get for a specific search may be totally different from that of another person performing the same search?
Also, if you search while logged in to your Google account and then repeat the search after logging out, you will get different results.
The reason is that Google will examine and take into account the sites that you have visited before, where you are located and even the device you are using before showing your search results.
9. Competitor Improvements
You might be doing everything right, but still losing traffic and seeing your rankings drop. One of the raIs it just that your competition is doing a better job.
Keep an eye on your competitors by analyzing and monitoring their activity on social networks, their link building strategies and content marketing. You can use tools like Wayback Machine or Versionista to see changes made by your competition.
You can also use back tools to see if they've had an influx of new backs; they can run their own SEO campaign.
Once you understand what your competition has done to outdo you, make the same changes - do - only better.
10. Page Speed
The speed at which the content of your pages loads will not only affect your rankings, but also the user experience of visitors to your website.more time to load, the bounce rates are higher, because the users don't want to wait to see your content.
At check your page speed , try to 'use Google's new and improved PageSpeed tool. The tool has been redesigned to integrate real user data.
Pages rank quickly, slowly, and average based on how fast they load.
11. Server issues
If your site is having server issues, it could be the result of an interrupted cache function or empty markup sent to Googlebot . It is essential that you resolve any server issues quickly.
Check your server logs for errors and use Extraction and rendering tool to test the rendering or exploration of a URL of your site.
12. Other Web Vitals
Google has stated that other UX and Web Vitals signals, such as " Cumulative Layout Shift, " can change the ranking of your site.
- What did we experience on your page like?
- Does the layout change a lot?
- Is there a there a lot of announcements?
13. Internal navigation
Your website navigation tells your visitors what and where they will find information on your site.
Try to have a flat, narrow structure from two or at most three levels deep for your internal navigation. If your visitors have to click too many times to find what they are looking for, they are more likely to leave.
Search engines may stop crawling content buried deep within your website. This in turn will lower your rankings and get you less traffic to important content areas.
Internal linking strategies are not just part of a good Search optimization. t also an integral part of your other customer retention strategies.
Making your internal links and navigation simple and logical improves customer retention and increases other ranking metrics like time spent on site. Using keyword rich internal links will help search enginesrche to quickly determine the topic of your site and if your content is relevant to the queries.
14. Penalties for poor quality links
Not all links are created equal.
If you use risky, spam, or outdated link building strategies, Google will penalize your site.
Google makes it very clear what it considers a shoddy link in the first paragraph of their Search Console help section called Link schemes:
Take the time to develop a Building high quality links to avoid getting penalized by Google and grow your organic search traffic.
Some suggestions for creating good links:
- Fix your broken links by creating new and useful ones.
- Use PR toget quoted in an online content or news article.
- Write great content and promote it widely on social media so people can find it.
- For other suggestions, read Link Building Guide SEJ .
15. Recent website changes and redesign
If you decide to redesign your website , the last thing you want to do is lose the traffic and rankings you have worked so hard to build.
Some specific steps you can take to not harm but even help your ranking are:
- Make sure that all 301 redirects are correctly mapped .
- Check the link structure of your inbound links to make sure they work properly on your new site.
- Before launching your new website, get reports of basic metrics such as rank tracking, site audit, traffic, and page url mapping.
With careful planning and attention to the essential components of your redesign project, you will avoid negatively impacting your SEO and rankings and may even make improvements.
16. Simple technical issues
Technical SEO is the measure of the health of the technical base of your website. It refers to SEO work that affects the way search engines crawl and index your contentu.
See Most common technical SEO errors: how bad are they? are they serious? for some of the more common issues that can affect your website traffic and ranking. Being aware of technical SEO issues helps you take better care of your website and maintain your rankings.
Technical SEO issues are one of the basic issues that can keep you from ranking.
17. Server overload
If your server is not configured or prepared for sudden traffic spikes, it could overload and crash. Those that are on a shared server are more likely to crash because someone else on the same server might see a sudden surge in traffic.
Many hosting packages will destroy your site if you go over your limits.bandwidth moths. This can happen if your site manages to get featured on a popular site.
If your site experiences too much downtime, it will negatively affect your search rank.
18. Meta Informer ation
Meta-information or span tags are used to tell search engines what information your site provides.
One of the most important metadata types that will help you improve your SEO ranking is the title tag . The headers and the span deions .
Avoid being inconsistent when providing your meta information.
For example, if you change the date of an article on your site, be sure to edit it in the meta deion as well. You want to avoid duplicating your meta information or using trivial and generic titles like "Home ".
You should use more specific title tags that include your target keyword.
If you use the same title for multiple pages, not only will you confuse your users, but you will end up competing with yourself in the SERPs.
19. Source of traffic
Your website traffic includes not only the number of visits to your site, but also the number of pages clicked and the time spent on each page .
Traffic can come from a number of sources, including:
- Email marketing
- Referrals
- Direct traffic
- Rnatural search
- Paid search
- Social networks
Which one is better?
The answer is the source that generates the most engagement, the lowest bounce rate, and the most conversions.
Your traffic may decrease from sources outside of natural search. For example, if a change has been made to the way links are handled on Twitter or Facebook.
Direct traffic occurs when someone types your URL into an address bar.
This may not be crucial for ranking, but it is important because:
- Visitors choose to come back to your site because They already know you and want what you offer.
- You are already recognized as an industry expert in your niche, so visitors come to your site because they know your brand.
- Direct traffic is not affected by social media orGoogle change and serve as an independent source of visitors.
You can follow your direct traffic statistics in your Google Analytics dashboard. If you want to increase your direct traffic, focus on a clear and memorable brand.
Continuously deliver value and expert advice to your website visitors and show them you are an expert in your industry.
20. Time spent on site
User engagement can impact your search rankings. Bounce rate and average time spent on your web pages are two metrics that you can easily measure in Google Analytics.
These stats are not a direct ranking factor, but they indicate whether you are providing a good experience for your users.
You want to reduce a rebate ratehigh ond? Check out 20 Proven Tactics That Will Reduce Your Website's High Bounce Rate .
Want people to spend more time browsing your content? Read the 3 tips to increase the time people spend reading your content .
21. Duplicate content
Google defines duplicate content as substantial content blocks that appear in or in domains that are substantially similar or completely match other content.
This isn 't always considered deceptive or malicious and doesn ' t always solve ult in the lower search engine rankings.
When the content is manif deliberately duplicated to manipulate rankings and increase traffic, your site will be penalized. This can mean that your content is competing for the same queries, and when Google thinks a query should have more Your ranking will suffer and in the worst case your site may be deleted entirely from Google's index. It will no longer be found in the search. Some methods of attracting users to your site, such as lists, still work, but users may be tired of this type of technique and avoid clicking on your links. Do your titles accurately describe what is on the page? Do you avoid things like "you won't guess what will happen next "? Do your meta deions hook people up, or chase them away? Try out the A / B test meta deions and titles to see if there are any fixes that can attract more people. There are no shortcuts to increasing your website traffic. If you want to get more search engine visibility, you have to spend a lot of time and effort. Don 't try to take a shortcut through sketchy strategies, or you could suffer the negative consequences of poor search rankings and loss of traffic. Stay informed of the latest updates and best practices to increase your online visibility and grow your business. More resources: 22. You are using old Clickbait techniques
Protect Your Valuable Ranking and Search Traffic
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