Website traffic is an important marketing metric for most companies. The more visitors who see your Web content, the more chances you have to make an impact, develop relationships and boost sales. That’s why a sudden and sharp decline in traffic can be such an unpleasant jolt—it represents lost opportunities to convert viewers to customers.
Identifying the issue is one thing; diagnosing it can be much more tricky. There are many potential causes of a decline in website traffic, ranging from a Google algorithm update to technical issues. We asked members of Forbes Agency Council to offer tips on where a business should start investigating a significant loss in website traffic. Here’s what they had to say.
Members of Forbes Agency Council offer tips for diagnosing a drop in your business’ website traffic.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Check For Recent Google Updates
For a dip in organic traffic, the first place to look is with Google to see if they’ve recently released an algorithm update that negatively affected your rankings and visibility. The most recent example of this happened in August 2018, when Google released its “Medic” update. – Steve Cross, iSynergy
2. Improve Your SEO
The best place to start is checking to make sure you are up on Google algorithms and that your content matches the parameters of how Google performs searches. It is ever-changing, which means you can’t just throw some keywords in and expect results. Lower traffic means fewer people are seeing you—improving your SEO strategy is how to fix that. – Jason Hall, FiveChannels Marketing
3. Check Your Traffic Sources
What’s great about analytics is that you can “see” why there is a decline in website traffic. Check your traffic sources before and after the decline so you can find which source was mostly affected. If it’s organic (search engines), look at your rankings; if it’s social, track down what you were posting before and after; and if it’s referrals, then make sure these sites are still linking to you! – Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design
4. Determine If It’s A Technology Issue
In the markets we serve, a sudden drop in traffic is virtually always a technology issue. If you build great content that ideal prospects cannot resist and you market it appropriately and with respect, there is almost never a steep decline unless the technology breaks. There are all kinds of tech issues that can cause declines. This is why our clients rely on us to have really sharp tech skills. – Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group
5. Look At The Stories You’re Telling
Have you experienced a lull in new content? Have you made a shift to different types of stories? If you’re doing A/B testing to see what types of content your consumers prefer, then congratulations—you just figured it out. If not, then maybe it’s time to take a hard look at your strategy and find ways to tell new stories that will be more engaging for your readers and keep them coming back for more. – Lisa Arledge Powell, MediaSource
6. Check For Outdated Terminology
First, review your site’s text for the latest terminology. An example is “marketing” versus “sales enablement.” Second, review how prospective customers find or don’t find your site. Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is one approach. An example is a Web search for “marketing agency” versus “sales enablement agency.” As industry buzzwords change, so will your page rank. – Jim Caruso, MediaFirst PR – Atlanta
7. Check Web Hosting Infrastructure
I would recommend checking the server/Web hosting infrastructure to ensure everything is technically performing and optimal. Then I would look to SEO, including the page rank and any recent on-site changes that may have impacted index scoring. – Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
8. Look At Your Bounce Rate
The first place to look is bounce rate to determine if traffic arrived but dropped off or if traffic never arrived in the first place. If the former, it’s time to look at design and navigation as well as website performance to figure out where the problem is. If the latter, then it’s time to review SEO and see if there was a change in the search algorithm that you can adjust for. – Stefan Pollack, The Pollack PR Marketing Group
9. Check Google Analytics
If you see an unexpected dip in traffic in Google Analytics (GA), you simply have to dig further to see what the cause is. Check the Acquisition Overview in Google Analytics to determine which channel had the biggest dip—organic, direct, referral, paid search or social. This typically will point you in the right direction to determine where you need to investigate further. – T. Maxwell, eMaximize
10. Do Analytics Integration And Messaging Audits
If the spike is sudden, it’s likely an issue with your analytics integration. If the decline is gradual, the situation is likely more serious. It might mean your messaging no longer resonates, the content you have on your website is stale or you’re not getting media coverage that can push additional readers to your site. Conduct a website audit or find out if a search engine algorithm changed. – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications
11. Make Sure The Drop Is Real
Start by making sure it’s an actual loss of traffic and not an issue with your analytics measurement tool (e.g., pages dropped GA code). Once you’ve ruled that out, investigate the source(s). In other words, what channel(s) dropped? Was it organic search? Paid media? Email? Direct? All of the above? Knowing which channels/sources/mediums were impacted will help you understand the cause. – Gyi Tsakalakis, AttorneySync
12. Analyze Trends By Source And Channel
When traffic is on the decline, it’s important to understand where the loss is coming from. This means a deep dive into the source (the origination of the traffic—e.g., Google) and the channel (the type of traffic—e.g., social media) to determine where the attrition is occurring. Once that’s uncovered, look at what has changed. Once you identify these factors, you can create a strategy to improve. – Bryan Shetsky, Lamark Media
13. Check Backlinks To Your Site
First check backlinks to your site on different directories, industry association pages and even paid listings that may be powering traffic to your website from a credible source. Changes to those sites that impact your links could be devastating. Quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant sites also help in getting better search engine rankings. – Jim Heininger, The Rebranding Experts
14. Catch It Early With A Daily Scorecard
With tools like Google Data Studio, it’s easy to create a custom scorecard for your analytics and have it emailed each day. The trick is setting up segmentations for monitoring changes in traffic against a monthly or yearly cadence. Next, breaking down site traffic by channel (SEO/paid/email/social) helps to quickly identify what’s happening by channel and fix small issues before they become big. – Jacob Cook, Tadpull
