Do you want to know why your web traffic is decreasing? Do not worry. We are protecting you.
Your traffic may be decreasing as a result of changes to the search engine algorithm or a change made to your website design.
In this post, we share 8 reasons why traffic to your site may be declining. Read on to learn more.
If you’re experiencing a drop in traffic to your site, don’t panic, but take the time to find out the cause.
There are several reasons for the decrease in website traffic. Sometimes it can be caused by algorithm penalties and ranking algorithms from search engines like Google.
The factors and many others that we are going to share below can cause great harm to your online business, causing a decrease in organic traffic, as this results in a loss of potential customers.
Website traffic is a vital aspect when it comes to businesses with an online presence. The more traffic you get, the greater your chances of creating your brand awareness, building relationships, and therefore generating sales (CRO).
There are many ways to determine the cause of dropping traffic on your site, but the first step is to conduct an in-depth analysis.
This will give you an idea of why your traffic is decreasing. In this article, we’ll compile a list of some common causes of decreased traffic, as shared by Joseph Mathews, a content writer at cheap custom essay writing services.
Let’s start.
Why Did My Organic Traffic Suddenly Drop?
Google Algorithm Updates
Google has released many algorithm updates and tweaks over the years and will continue to do so in the future.
This is because there have been website users using black hat SEO to scam search engines. Google is trying to offer users better end results.
The disturbing part is that Google is not announcing an update. This is why you need to use tools like Mozcast and the SEMrush Sensor to diagnose website traffic loss.
This is the first step in finding out if your site has been affected by an algorithm update. Once you’ve identified the date your site started to sink, you’ll need to see if it was the same date that Google updated its algorithm.
Below you can see Google’s top algorithm releases and the latest changes to Moz.
Poor Quality Content
Google first released its algorithm called Panda in 2014, which hit content quality.
Thousands of sites were affected by this update due to a lack of quality content and many were penalized for having a good ranking.
The updated algorithm directly affected any poorly written content.
- Is your site full of content with lots of misspellings and improper grammar?
- Is it useless for readers?
If your answer is yes to both questions, prepare to be punished by Google.
If your site has little to no content, you can be sure that you will face tough times with the search engines.
The same applies when you write content based on the same topic. Make sure to post diverse content and not with the same types of topics.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can affect your site in a number of ways, such as weakening domain and page authority (PA).
Duplicate content can also affect user experience and metrics and therefore disrupt search crawlers on your site.
Most of the time, established ecommerce platforms aim to index everything on Google. This approach can be useful at a time when domain authority is high, but when it gets weak, your site suffers.
Duplicate content is any content copied from other sites or rewritten content and can be detected by Google.
If you decide to duplicate the content on some pages or throughout the site, this will have an adverse impact on your traffic, once it is penalized by the search engines.
Lack of New Content
Google loves new content. Google loves to see you update your site with helpful, useful, informative, and new content for your users on a regular basis.
If you last published your post a year ago, it’s time to start writing new content. But remember, for Google to love your new content, it must be quality, not duplicate.
Also, aim at publishing content with a greater number of words, in addition to including specific keywords without abusing them.
Another thing that you must not forget when it comes to publishing new content is the use of effective images, keep your content attractive and engaging to readers.
High Bounce Rate
Low-quality content, duplicate content, the appearance of new content, and a slow website all contribute to a high bounce rate.
Bounce rate is when a reader lands on your page, reads the title, and navigates to other sites without wasting time on it.
The bounce rate was attributed to the way Google ranks a web page because the more time readers spend on your site, the more Google trusts your content, and the more chances for your content to rank well.
So be sure to take all of these factors into account to prevent your site’s traffic from dropping.
Broken Pages and Links
“Wow … Error 404 Sorry, the page you are looking for does not exist”
Have you experienced this error message on your site? How often? After trying it out, did you have time to fix it or did you just ignore it?
Although ignorance can be a weapon at times, but not when it comes to digital marketing, unless you are prepared to experience a huge drop in traffic.
Most of the time, you may experience some missing links or broken pages as a result of tracking issues or something like that. But when this problem increases, it can indicate a disaster in your website traffic regarding organic traffic and user experience. This will also result in a high bounce rate.
To overcome the problems of missing links and broken pages, you should practice 301 redirects. This will help redirect traffic and search engines to a different URL than the one that is returning an error message.
Another way is to edit and repair broken pages and links. Check for broken links and work on them before they affect traffic to your site.
Website Redesign
Has your website domain changed? We hope you have implemented the appropriate redirects; otherwise, your readers will get a 404-page error and this can cause your site to lose your hard-earned traffic.
All of your organic traffic can drop significantly if you don’t implement 301 redirects.
Too Much Keyword-rich Anchor Texts
Are you abusing key anchor texts? If so, be prepared for a site penalty from search engines.
By using many important anchor texts that direct readers to URLs on your website, Google calls it spam. So try to avoid overuse of keyword-rich anchor texts on your site.
Last Words
A drop in traffic to your site may or may not come from you alone. There are several reasons that can cause this to happen.
However, these are the most common that we have identified. Our final word is to encourage you to optimize your website to deliver great end-user results.