Have you noticed a drop in web traffic or Organic search engine rankings for your website’s keyphrases?
If you have, you might want to investigate why. A loss of web traffic can ultimately lead to a loss of customers, which obviously leads to a loss in revenue – no business wants that!
DigitUX has put together a list of 10 possible reasons why your website’s traffic may have dropped.
- LINKS
You might not realise just how important links are to a website, but (high quality) links essentially tell search engines how ‘popular’ or ‘authoritative’ a website is.
Losing just 1 really high quality link carries a lot of weight and as such, creates a big impact of how Google (and other search engines) rank your website. If you lose rankings in Google, then the flow-on effect is less traffic – as the saying goes ‘the best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google’.
We recommend keeping a close eye on your website’s link profile with some link tools such as Majestic, Ahrefs or with a DigitUX SEO Campaign where we provide monthly link reports to every client.
2. UX
The goal of any website should be to present users with the best user experience (UX) possible – and Google’s goal is no different.
That’s why Google constantly updates and refines its algorithm in order to continue to provide users with the best, most relevant results possible to keep them coming back.
If your web traffic numbers have dropped, it could be worthwhile looking at Google’s latest updates to see if your site might have been affected. If it has, and your ranking drops, this will certainly affect web traffic.
The good news is that you can always make updates and refinements to your website to minimise any ranking fluctuations and loss of web traffic.
3. COMPETITORS
If you’ve analysed your site in relation to SEO best practices and latest Google updates but still can’t figure out exactly why your rankings and traffic have dropped, then it could be time to look elsewhere.
For instance, you might want to start keeping a close eye on your online competitors to see if they might have been the ones to make some updates on their end.
As a result, Google may bump them up the rankings which means that you get bumped down.
There’s a stack of tools out there that can help you keep a close eye on competitor backlinks, social campaigns, advertising, SEO and more so that you can keep up – or even do them better!
4. HOSTING
You might not be aware that your super cheap hosting package might be costing you in other ways.
What do we mean? Well, sometimes ‘cheap’ hosting can result in unreliable infrastructure which means that your website goes down a regular basis.
If this is you, then Google will know and will penalise you as a result. Why? Because Google wants to deliver its users with reliable website sources – not ones that are reliable only sometimes.
At DigitUX, we offer affordable Australian web hosting for small and medium business, with an excellent on-shore support team. So, you’ll never have to worry about your server letting you down.
5. TECHNICAL SEO
Technical SEO can often get overlooked due to how ‘daunting’ it might seem to carry out effectively. However, if you have the greatest website ever but your technical SEO is letting you down, then what’s the point?
Technical SEO will ensure your website’s amazing content can be crawled and indexed by Google bots in an effective and efficient manner…. this of course leads to better rankings and increased web traffic.
6. META-DATA
Again, the term meta data can put people off due to its technical origins, however, there are tons of plugins that have made optimising your website’s meta data a walk in the park.
Meta data is used to tell search engines more about your website. For example, by using a
tag for the main title of your web page, you are ‘telling’ Google bots what that page will be about.
There’s no fooling Google though, so don’t even try to stuff a stack of keywords into your meta data – those days of black hat SEO techniques are long gone! Always utilise best practice, or, hire an SEO Specialist to get the best results.
7. CONTENT
When it comes to content, it’s best practice to ensure it’s unique, relevant and fresh.
While it’s ok to cite other websites or even use some of the content as a guide, there is a big difference when it comes down to the obvious ‘cutting and pasting’ of large chunks of content.
If you’re struggling with content, just write a little bit and add to it later when you have more time. Or, hire a content writer to help. Either way, the better your content is, the more users will want to read it, share it and enjoy it.
8. KEYPHRASE RELEVANCY
There’s no doubt that the world moves at a fast pace, particularly in the online world. While SEO is a long term strategy, it’s still important to check in on your keyphrases every 1 to 2 years to ensure they are still relevant to your business, industry and customers.
If they’re not relevant anymore, you might be missing out on web traffic that is searching for newer phrases. And if you’re not getting that additional web traffic, your competitors will be!
9. PAGE SPEED
Page speed has become an incredibly important ranking factor over the last couple of years, with UX at the forefront.
Users are becoming more impatient while expecting the latest visual elements to keep them engaged on your site. To give users the best of both worlds, you’ll need to perform a speed test and follow the recommendations to get your site performing where it should be.
A great place to start is with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
10. WEBSITE NAVIGATION
Website navigation is extremely important as it essentially tells users (and search engines) where you want them to go, and highlights the most important pages first (for example, by using a main navigation menu).
If your website is too complex or is filled with too many pages (often un-used or old web pages), then it’s not going to rank as well.
Always keep your site’s navigation concise so that users know exactly where to go.