Why Is My Website Traffic Dropping? (3 Step Solution)

Have you noticed a sudden drop in your website’s traffic? Seeing your organic traffic decline and your search rankings plummet can be extremely frustrating.

Don’t worry. In this quick checklist, we’ll cover some tips and tricks to revive your rankings and get your website back on track.

By analyzing the root cause of the issue, we’ll take a look at everything that could potentially be affecting your website’s traffic.

When there’s a sudden drop in website traffic, it can be alarming. However, you first need to be aware that it’s happening.

Typically, most SEO experts and business owners notice a drop in potential customer flow (inquiries from the website) before they realize there’s a drop in traffic. This is Google’s warning shot that something is wrong.

There are various ways to check for traffic drops, but most SEOs usually start by using Google Search Console. Another great but expensive tool is Cora, which looks at actual search engine results pages and performs multiple searches to see how your site might appear higher or lower in search results.

This graph in Google Search Console is a great way to get a quick idea of what’s going on:

You can quickly identify what’s happening on your website by comparing your traffic drop to these “patterns.”

My Website Traffic Has Been Declining for a While

Has your site’s traffic been low for a long time? If so, there are several different issues that could be causing this. Here are three potential problems:

1. Your Technical SEO Might Be Insufficient:
   Technical SEO issues, such as slow page speed, poor mobile optimization, or crawl errors, could be hurting your rankings and traffic.
2. You Might Not Be Targeting the Right Keywords:
   If you’re focusing on irrelevant or low-volume keywords, your site may not attract the right audience or enough traffic.
3. Your Site Might Not Be Using HTTPS:
   Websites without HTTPS (secure protocol) are often penalized by search engines and may lose user trust, leading to lower traffic.

To learn more about each of these issues and how to fix them, keep reading.

1. Your Technical SEO Might Be Insufficient

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing website traffic by ensuring your site ranks higher on Google. Understandably, a poor SEO strategy will result in your website failing to attract traffic.

Specifically, you should focus on optimizing your technical SEO—meaning SEO tactics that focus on the backend of your website. Technical SEO includes:

• Having a robots.txt file
• Creating an XML sitemap
• Optimizing your site’s navigation
• Improving your page speeds
• Making your site mobile-friendly
• …and more!

Optimizing each of these elements is a great way to improve your website traffic.

2. You Might Not Be Targeting the Right Keywords

When it comes to improving website traffic, keywords are everything. Adding a specific keyword to a page tells Google that your page should rank for that keyword. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should target just any keyword. To start, you should target keywords that are relevant to your business.

Additionally, you should aim to target long-tail keywords—keywords that are a few words long. These keywords are more specific, meaning they target a more precise audience and have less competition in search results.

Keywords play a crucial role in improving website traffic. Therefore, it’s important to target the most relevant keywords and use keyword research tools like Semrush and Ahrefs.

If you’re not currently targeting any keywords, or if the keywords you’re targeting are not relevant or long-tail, it’s no surprise that you’re experiencing low traffic. However, you can start fixing this issue by rethinking your keyword strategy.

Don't Miss Out on the 10% Spring Discount for our SEO Package!

Contact us now and take advantage of 10% discount on our SEO packages!

Call us now

3. Your Site Might Not Be Using HTTPS

Another possible reason for your website’s traffic drop is that it might not be using HTTPS. Check your website’s URL—does it start with “https” or just “http”? If it’s the latter, this could be part of the problem. While the standard HTTP protocol is used by many sites, HTTPS is preferred.

The reason is that HTTPS is essentially a more secure version of HTTP. It tells users that your site is safe to visit—especially if it includes an online store where they might share financial information. Additionally, Google prefers HTTPS websites, so using this protocol can help you rank higher.

If Your Website Traffic Has Recently Dropped…

So far, we’ve looked at some things that could affect your website traffic in the long term. But what if this is a very recent issue? Maybe your traffic was fine last week, but it suddenly dropped significantly this week.

Has Your Website Traffic Dropped Recently?

In this case, it might just be a coincidence, but it could also be something more serious. Here are three possible reasons why your site traffic has dropped recently:

You Might Have Made Recent Changes to Your Site (Infrastructure, CMS, etc.)

One possible reason for your website’s lack of traffic could be that you recently made significant updates to your site. If you’ve made major changes to your site recently, this could affect your rankings on Google, leading to a drop in traffic.
For example, maybe you recently redesigned your site’s layout and launched the updated version. However, the redesigned website might load much slower than the original version, causing it to rank lower on Google. This could result in a significant drop in traffic.
If you’ve made major changes recently, review them to see if they might be responsible for the low traffic you’re experiencing.

Your Site Might Have Been Penalized

Google penalties occur when Google manually penalizes a website’s ranking position. This happens when websites use unethical, black-hat SEO tactics, such as:

1. Keyword stuffing
2. Duplicate content
3. Suspicious or paid links
4. Content cloaking

Needless to say, you should avoid using any of these shady tactics. But what if you already have? You might have even done it accidentally. In that case, Google may have penalized your site, causing it to rank much lower (or not at all) and significantly harming your traffic.

Google Might Have Updated Its Algorithm

Finally, the sudden drop in traffic might not be related to changes you made but rather to changes Google made. Google frequently updates its algorithm, sometimes making really significant changes. Check the news—has Google recently made a notable update to its algorithm?
If so, you need to understand exactly what those changes are. For example, let’s say Google rolled out an update focused on search intent. In that case, you should review your content and make some adjustments to better align with the search intent for the keywords you’re targeting.

Is Your Website Not Getting Traffic? Consult Our Experts!

Improving website traffic isn’t always as simple as following the steps above. Sometimes, you may need to take it a step further by consulting with a professional SEO agency and working with an SEO service provider.

Fortunately, we’ve got your back. We offer professional SEO and digital marketing services to help your site rank higher and attract more traffic. With decades of experience under our belts, we know what it takes to drive traffic.

If you’d like to work with us as your SEO agency, contact us today to get started!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Digipeak Agency (@digipeakagency)