Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies you can use to grow your digital revenue. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
What are the most common reasons for a decline in website traffic?
Some of the most common reasons why website traffic declines include a new search engine algorithm update, not providing “helpful” content, and having technical SEO errors on your site.
Why is my website traffic going down? It’s a question many of us have asked at some point. And if this question is on your mind, then you need a solution, and fast.
Luckily for you, we’re diving into some of the most common reasons why your website traffic is going down! Plus, one of WebFX’s own resident search engine optimization (SEO) experts, Clayton, provides his expert insights on the most common causes of drops in web traffic that our team sees and how we fix them!
Let’s get started!
P.S. Try our free Website Traffic Checker tool to check your site’s traffic right now for free!
5 main causes of website traffic decline
So, now that you know how we get to the bottom of web traffic declines, let’s dive into some of the most common causes of website traffic drops.
Keep reading to discover them, plus insights from our SEO expert Clayton, on some of the most common causes our team sees and how we fix them!
A common culprit for lower web traffic is not producing “helpful”, valuable content for users.
Expert insights from
ClaytonWebFX Internet Marketing Expert
“It is possible you will see a drop in your site’s organic traffic if you are not prioritizing the creation of “helpful content”. Google’s helpful content system intends to favor sites that are creating people-first content and provide value to readers. Creating content just to do it no longer works. Instead, focus on creating content that provides value to help grow your organic traffic, rather than fill it with unhelpful content that is more likely to lose traffic.”
The problem
Search engines like Google want to give their users the best possible experience. And that means showing them websites that answer their questions and provide them with the information they need.
If your content isn’t people-first focused compared to being created for search engines, you’ll likely experience a drop in traffic.
Our solution
So, how do the experts at WebFX produce helpful content that ranks well in search engines?
First, our content strategists develop a content marketing strategy for our clients that focuses on developing custom content that provides the information their target audience is searching for.
Then, our in-house copywriters and editors get to work creating the content. Our team will conduct thorough research into the current search results to determine exactly what users want to know for each topic to ensure the copy satisfies users.
Plus, our SEO and user experience (UX) specialists will ensure that your content follows SEO best practices and provides a great user experience for site visitors.
Technical SEO errors and issues can also cause a loss in website traffic.
Expert insights from
ClaytonWebFX Internet Marketing Expert
“Your site has technical errors that are holding it back. Trying to build a site on a poor technical foundation is going to be difficult. As these issues continue to grow, you are likely see your site’s traffic dip. Taking time to address your site’s technical SEO can go a long way in boosting your site’s existing content, as well as putting new content in a better position to drive results faster.”
The problem
Technical SEO is a set of website and server optimizations that make your site easier for crawlers and website visitors to understand and use.
There are plenty of technical SEO ranking factors that you need to consider when it comes to ranking well in the search results and driving traffic to your website.
Here are a few common technical SEO issues our team encounters:
If you’re asking, “Why is my website going down,” and you’re not familiar with technical SEO, you’ll likely need the help of a professional agency.
So, how do the SEO experts at WebFX solve these technical SEO errors?
When you invest in our SEO services, our team gets started by conducting a thorough SEO audit of your entire website. We’ll identify any technical SEO issues and other errors affecting your SEO performance and web traffic.
From there, our team will work with you to craft a custom SEO strategy that helps you solve those technical SEO issues in order of priority and reach your business goals.
You may also experience a drop in web traffic if you were driving traffic from a paid ad campaign that recently ended.
Expert insights from
ClaytonWebFX Internet Marketing Expert
“Maybe some of your campaigns were paused, and you didn’t realize it. Maybe you have a social or Google Ads campaign that stopped running last month causing your overall traffic to take a dip. Do yourself a favor and create reminders for when you have campaigns starting and stopping to help you not miss anything when reviewing your site’s analytics.”
The problem
If you were running an effective paid ad campaign, like pay-per-click (PPC) ads, that drove a lot of traffic to your site, you might have experienced a dip in traffic after it stopped running.
You may also experience a loss in traffic if some of your campaigns are paused.
Our solution
When diagnosing traffic drops for clients, our team will look into your paid ad campaigns to determine if they are the root cause behind your loss in traffic.
If they are, we’ll work with you to get those campaigns back up and running to restore your traffic. Plus, we can help you optimize your campaigns on an ongoing basis to help you drive even more traffic and conversions for your website.
4. You recently redesigned your site and didn’t prepare for SEO
A site redesign that doesn’t consider SEO can cause devastating damage to your website traffic.
Expert insights from
ClaytonWebFX Internet Marketing Expert
“Many sites experience a dip in traffic after launching a new website, especially if there are major changes to URLs. If did not properly prep for a redesign (content migration, 301 redirects, updating internal links), you are likely to see a drop in traffic that might take some time to recover from.”
The problem
Redesigning your website is an excellent decision, especially if you have an older site. A refreshed website looks modern and professional, plus provides a better user experience, which can increase your bottom line.
The problem, however, is that many companies forget about SEO when designing their site.
Even web design agencies make this mistake. While they understand design and how to create an attractive and usable website, they don’t recognize the relationship between web design and SEO, and how a redesigned (or newly designed) website can tank traffic.
Redesigning the website without including your Google Analytics tracking code
In comparison, a site design can prevent your website from ever achieving its dream levels of traffic. That’s because, without SEO, your site will struggle to appear in search results related to your industry, products, or services.
Since your website’s design impacts your entire site, it’s critical to fix this problem right away.
Our solution
At WebFX, our team can approach a traffic drop following a site redesign in a few ways, including:
Restore your previous site with backups
Optimize your new content and website
Update your sitemap
Set up 301 redirects
Depending on your redesign, your fix may take a significant amount of time.
For example, if your company needs to restart your SEO strategy, it will take time to rank in search results and earn the kind of traffic that your website had before. In comparison, creating 301 redirects requires less work, though your traffic levels will probably take a few weeks or months to recover.
We can help your team and company regain your traffic, as well as ensure that future design updates protect your SEO strategy.
For many companies, an algorithm update is the most common culprit for lower website traffic.
The problem
Search engines like Google and Bing aren’t lounging around. They’re always looking for ways to improve the search experience because a better search experience means happier users, and satisfied users mean increased loyalty and market share.
That’s why it’s common for search engines to update their algorithms regularly. An updated algorithm, however, can change your website’s ranking in search results. It can improve your ranking or decrease it, which impacts your site traffic.
If a search engine like Google, for example, updates their algorithm and that results in your website moving from page one to page two for a competitive keyword, it can cut your site traffic substantially. That’s because only 25 percent of users view the second page of search results.
Our solution
At WebFX, our SEO experts spend their days staying up-to-date with the latest search engine algorithm changes and updates to ensure your website consistently drives traffic and revenue.
If we find that your website lost traffic due to an algorithm update, we’ll investigate to determine what factors influenced the drop in traffic and fix them. We’ll also optimize your website on an ongoing basis to keep your website up-to-date with the latest changes.
We can also help you implement a cross-channel marketing strategy to help your business earn website traffic from multiple sources.
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Restore your website traffic (and then some) with WebFX
No one wants to see their website traffic down, but it happens. Learning why your website traffic is going down on Google and how you can fix it, however, provides your business with the insight and tools for regaining your traffic.
In many cases, it’s an enormous task to restore your website traffic, like after a website redesign or abandoned keyword strategy. That’s why businesses partner with our full-service digital marketing agency.
With more than 28 years of experience, plus more than 500 web marketing specialists, we have the skills and technology to help your company. Just browse our testimonials and digital marketing services to see how our team can help yours.
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies you can use to grow your digital revenue. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
