Your website’s organic traffic took a sudden plunge? You may have been losing traffic slowly, but didn’t realize it.
Don’t panic. This is a common problem for website owners.
There is good news: there is a solution, provided you understand the problem. How do you identify the problem? What is the right time to call in experts?
Continue reading to learn about the most common causes of sudden drops in website traffic, and how to fix them.
Why is organic traffic so important?
Organic traffic is a result of a search engine’s algorithm bringing the most trustworthy and relevant results to its users.
The algorithm will reward you for answering the query on your website and directing users to your site. This means that you don’t need to pay people to visit your website. They are naturally coming to you, which is a great thing.
There are many benefits to organic traffic to your site, such as:
- Qualified leads
- It’s more sustainable
- Conversion rates that are higher
- It increases brand loyalty
- Customer intent-driven ROI
- It is economical
- It attracts highly engaged customers
- Customer intent drives it.
SEO is the main problem
Backlink.io reports that the #1 Google result has a click-through ratio (CTR) 27.6%. At 15.8%, the second-placed search result has slightly more CTR than the first. The third result receives 11.0% CTR. The CTR of the first result is 10x greater than that of the tenth.
Source: Backlink.io
This highlights the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) to rank higher in search results and attract more visitors. A sudden drop in organic traffic to your website is a sign that your SEO efforts aren’t as effective.
SEO is optimizing a website to search engines using the correct keywords, backlinks and other elements. This will increase your chances of appearing in search engine results and attract more organic traffic. To get to the top search results, you must understand the fundamental principles of SEO.
- Keyword research and integration
- Optimization of title tags
- Meta description optimization
- Link building
- Optimizing the user experience
- Content development.
How SEO can impact your organic traffic
SEO can improve your website’s organic traffic and bring in qualified leads if done correctly. It is not an easy task, so be patient as you implement an SEO strategy.
Source Bloggers’ Ideas
These are the most common SEO problems
These are the top issues that can impact your search rankings and consequently your organic traffic.
- Duplicate Content: According Google, duplicate content is a page that is substantially similar to another on the same website or another site. Because it doesn’t have unique information to offer search engines, this content won’t rank well. If duplicate content is found to be intentionally duplicated in order to manipulate search rankings and increase traffic it can not only lower your search rankings, but also could cause Google to delete your website entirely from their index.
- Poor or broken link building: Linking can help increase your website’s traffic. However, it should be done carefully. Every link to your site must be relevant and include the appropriate anchor text to allow search engines to properly value it. A broken link or non-existent link will result in lower CTR for search engines that are searching the internet for new information.
- Poor mobile experience: More than half of all web traffic comes via mobile devices and this is only growing. Your bounce rate will increase if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, meaning that it doesn’t load correctly on mobile devices or has a responsive design.
- Slow website: Websites that are slow can hurt your website’s organic traffic, and users could leave the site. Users expect pages to load within 1-2 seconds. Anything beyond that and they will abandon the site.
- On site optimization: Also called on-page SEO, this helps Google to understand the content of your website. This is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO). If your website content doesn’t match users’ search terms, it’s a negative signal for Google.
- Bad navigation. Poor navigation can also hinder your site’s organic traffic. Users will abandon your site if they can’t quickly find the content that they want on your site. Also, search engines might stop crawling content that is buried on your site. This can lead to lower rankings and less visibility.
- Poor user experience. Search engines consider user experience when ranking websites’ content. Search engines will quickly detect if users have issues with your site and will remove it from their search results. It will rank lower than websites that offer a better user experience.
How to spot quality and SEO issues
Source: AltaStreet Financial Websites
Now that you know the most common SEO problems that can affect your website’s organic traffic, it’s time to learn how to fix them.
1. Use an SEO analytics tool
Ahrefs and Semrush are SEO analytics tools that analyze traffic to your site, backlinks, search keywords, and other metrics. These tools can help you to identify areas for improvement and track your site’s progress over time. Even website builders can use SEO tools today. These tools help you to focus on the correct keywords, properly format your content, and include a meta description.
2. Follow Google Updates
Google’s search algorithm is updated approximately 500 times per year. These updates are designed to better address the user’s intent and enhance the search experience. In August 2022, Google updated to emphasize that creators should be focusing on people-first content.
The authors were advised to use first-hand experiences in their content. These updates can make the difference between losing or not organic traffic. These are some tips for keeping up with Google updates
- Set Google alerts
- Google Analytics
- Follow the industry leaders
- Follow Google Search Central Twitter.
3. Compare your content quality with that of your competitors
Comparing your website with other websites can help you identify content quality issues. An SEO tool that can quickly analyze the content of your competitors will show you which SEO elements work well and what areas are not. You can then mimic their success, fix problems, and avoid their mistakes.
4. Double-check your keyword strategies
An outdated keyword strategy could be your problem. A keyword strategy is a list or phrases of keywords that people use to search for content that meets their needs. This strategy must be updated periodically to keep up with the latest search trends.
Some keywords might be seasonal. This means that certain keywords are less searched or popular at certain times. Some keywords may become obsolete because of changes in user behavior.
You must do these things to increase your website traffic.
- Reexamine your keyword strategy to identify obsolete or generic terms
- Look for lower-competition, higher-volume keywords
- These keywords can be added to your content.
Keyword research can often uncover new content topics that you could use for your website. This is a huge win for SEO and content marketing, which will improve your website’s performance.
Six bulletproof tips to increase your organic traffic
Source Megalytic
1. Any major technical problems should be resolved
Problems with indexing or crawling can adversely affect your rankings. These issues can be fixed by following the steps:
- Verify if there are broken links on your web pages
- Fix duplicate content
- Mobile-friendly websites are a must
- Speed test your site
- Your website should be free of flash and other resource-heavy elements
- Image and video sitemaps can be fixed
- Verify that images include alt tags
- Add missing meta descriptions
- For any errors, check the sitemap for your website
- Check out your website.
2. Your website should look professional and be easy to navigate
Your users will be in a hurry so you should assume this. There are thousands of websites that offer similar content. Why would they visit your site? Make sure your website looks professional and is easy to use if you want them to stick around and achieve your business goals. These are just a few of the ways you can achieve this.
- Your pages should load quickly
- Responsive design is a way to create a website that’s easy to navigate.
- Provide concise, but informative content
- Do not forget to make a call for action.
3. Follow best practices in on-page SEO
These are some top-notch SEO tips that will make your site more appealing to search engines and users.
- Strategically use keywords
- In your title tags, include keywords
- Include keywords in your headings or subheadings
- Maintain a keyword ratio of 1 to 3 percent
- Include keywords in your H1 tag
- Include keywords in your image alt tags
- Make internal links to point to other pages of your website
- Repair broken links both internal and external
- When linking to other pages of your website, use relevant anchor text
- Mobile devices are the best way to view your pages.
4. Link building can increase the authority of your site
Link building can be a great way to improve your website’s authority as well as boost your site’s rankings. It is important to do it strategically as too many low quality links could hurt your rankings. These are the best ways to get backlinks that can be used for SEO.
- High domain authority websites (DA) can be used to build high-quality backlinks
- Backlinks to relevant websites within your industry
- Ask guest contributors to include backlinks from your website in their articles.
- Ask industry influencers to promote your site.
- Ask users of niche forums to link back to your site.
- Send press releases online for increased awareness about your product or service
5. You should be focusing on the user’s intent and content quality
Focus on providing the right information to users. This is:
- Write for people, not search engines
- Your content should be valuable and pertinent
- Your audience is most interested in the following topics
- Step-by-step instructions will give them the information they require
- Clear CTAs will motivate them to act.
6. Content curation can be used to provide better-quality content
Curation is the process of finding and sharing content that’s relevant to your audience. Curated content can be used to engage your audience, and help you better understand them. These are some tips to help you curate content.
- Select high-quality content instead of promoted content
- Be sure that the content you choose is consistent with your brand
- You can repurpose the content to make your audience unique
- Include a link to the original source or author
- Make sure the content source has adhered to on-page SEO best practice.
Conclusion
Your website is not just an online space for your business. You can also use it as a marketing tool to attract new customers and make them brand ambassadors.
A significant drop in organic traffic could compromise your marketing strategy, and negatively impact your bottom line. You can improve your website traffic by identifying the cause of your traffic drop immediately and fixing it.
To prevent a decrease in website traffic, and to engage your audience more, follow the tips below. If things aren’t improving, you may need to consult an SEO professional.
The first Scoop.it Blog article was Why Your Website’s Traffic is Suffering.
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