In recent columns, we’ve been looking at the importance of tracking your digital activity. So now you know how to spot a drop in performance, we’re going to show you what to do if you do see a decline in organic (SEO-driven website visitors) traffic and revenue.
What Could Be Causing the Issue?
A decline in organic performance could be down to many different issues. The first step is to try and identify what could be the cause of your website dropping in the search results.
Some of the common things that could be causing this to happen are:
- An increase in bounce rate: If visitors are landing on your site via the organic search results, but instantly ‘bouncing’, this will flag to Google that your site isn’t relevant.
- Algorithm updates: Google regularly updates the way it determines search results, and this can hit your site if you don’t align with their changing value metrics.
- Featured snippets: If Google has introduced a featured snippet for a search you rely on for website traffic, it might see your own site pushed further down the search results.
- Competitor push: If one of your competitors has invested heavily in SEO, they may surpass you and take your traffic – directly impacting your revenue.
- Major website changes: Major changes such as a new site launch could have a huge impact on your visibility, depending on the smoothness of the launch.
Actionable Steps
Now you know some of the potential causes, you can look to take action. Firstly, don’t panic. The best way to deal with traffic issues is to calmly analyse what might have gone wrong and devise an appropriate response.
Here are some ideas you can use:
- Create great content that improves the user experience and signals relevancy to Google.
- Conduct a technical audit to identify any issues such as broken pages or links.
- Develop relationships with valuable websites and encourage them to link to your site, most commonly via great content.
- Research the activity of your competitors and see what they’re doing well and aren’t doing so well.
- Remain patient – if an algorithm update has caused a drop, it may only be temporary.
These are just a few of the actionable steps that you can take to bring performance back on track.
For help addressing website issues and improving SEO results, contact Evoluted today!
Ash Young, Evoluted
