4 Possible Reasons Your Website Traffic Is Dropping
Nothing is more frightening for a business than noticing a sudden drop in website traffic. While search traffic is cyclical and web traffic statistics can fluctuate depending on a variety of factors, lower traffic usually means less profit.
If your traffic has been consistently declining, it may be time to review your SEO. Don't get me wrong: you should never disregard SEO. It must be constantly monitored and tweaked to be effective, but a consistent downward trend may indicate a more serious problem. In this article, I'll go over four reasons why your website's traffic may be declining. It doesn't cover every possibility, but in many cases, one of these four is to blame.
Changing Search Patterns Throughout the Year
SEO, as previously stated, is not a static process. It changes as frequently as people's Google searches do. As a result, you must keep up with what's new and, conversely, what's old news to your customers.
Holiday searches are a good example of this. Assume you own a costume shop. People searching for "Halloween costumes" or "costume ideas for Halloween" will typically drive the most traffic to your site in October. That means you should optimize your content with those keywords in order to reach out to more potential customers.
In contrast, you can not run Halloween advertisements for the rest of the year. You'll need to monitor search trends to find new costume-related keywords that will keep your business afloat. Incorporate keywords such as "Santa outfits" in December or "best Jedi costumes" in May.
Google Trends is a free and simple way to keep up with what's trending on the internet. You can use that data to find new, relevant keywords for your website and content.
Broken links are reducing your web traffic statistics.
Do you know how many links your website has? What's more, do you know if any of them are broken?
When a potential customer clicks on a broken link, they will receive a "404 Page Error," which can cause confusion or frustration. Most links fail because a site no longer exists, a webpage was moved without a redirect, or the URL structure of a site was changed.
You should check your site for broken links on a regular basis using tools like Google Search Central, Ahrefs, or SEMrush. The last two services are paid, but if you use them for SEO research, you may already have a subscription.
Broken links are easily repaired. If not, they may irritate visitors and reduce your web traffic statistics.
A Horrible Example of Keyword Cannibalization
Good SEO may appear to be simple, but if not done correctly, it can harm your traffic and rankings. Keyword cannibalization is one example of this. This indicates that you are attempting to rank for the same keywords in an excessive number of locations.
Perhaps you have the same exact keyword in multiple blogs, or you are attempting to rank for multiple searches on the same page (like a sales page, for example). The keywords basically eat away at each other, resulting in a drop in your ranking and less traffic to your site.
By conducting a search and seeing if two nearly identical pieces of content from your site appear, you can easily identify keyword cannibalization. If you suspect this, go through all of your content and determine which keywords are performing the best. The others must then be merged, deleted, or redirected.
Google's Core Web Vitals Have Changed
Have you seen Google's Core Web Vitals? If you don't know what it is, you should look it up because it will be one of the most significant changes to the search engine in 2022.
Core Web Vitals are used to assess your site's performance. They are comprised of three distinct metrics: LCP (largest contentful paint), FID (first input delay), and CLS (cumulative layout shift). These metrics tell Google how long it takes for your pages to load, the level of interactivity, and whether your on-page content is stable for visitors.
Last year, Google announced that Core Web Vitals, which focuses on user experience, would now be considered a ranking factor. What does this mean for your company? If you don't optimize how your site works for visitors, you might see a drop in traffic this year.
Many traffic drops are also caused by Google updates, which occur several times per year. When Google updates its algorithm, websites must adjust their strategies to compensate. It's a given for any company that sells products or services online.
Make sure you have someone on staff or on retainer who can assist you in recovering from a Google update. If you notice a sudden drop in web traffic statistics, check the four reasons listed above first. If the issue persists, contact an SEO professional.
