8 Common Reasons for Drop in Your Website Traffic

Your company website should be the leading source of traffic, leads, and conversions for your brand. Think of your website as your business HQ, and if people aren’t visiting these headquarters, that’s a major problem.

An unexplained drop in traffic to your site can be caused by many things, like SEO-related issues, loss of referral traffic, or recent Google algorithm updates.

For this reason, it’s important to regularly monitor your website traffic. Frequent “traffic updates” are a must, and if you’ve noticed a decrease in traffic patterns, you need to fix the problem ASAP.

The first step in remedying the problem is to figure out what’s causing the traffic drop. There are several explanations for a sudden drop in website traffic, which we’ll explore in this guide. To top it off, we’ll provide you with steps on how to boost website traffic based on the problem at hand.

Keep in mind these are just a few of the most common reasons for decreased traffic to your website, but checking into the following potential issues is a good starting point.

1. Google’s Core Algorithm Updates

As the top search engine for everyone everywhere, Google is constantly making updates to its ranking factors. These Google algorithm updates typically come out several times per year, but these days, they’ve been happening even more frequently.

As soon as an algorithm is added or updated, you could potentially see a shift in your traffic patterns. The only real way to fix this is to have a knowledgeable SEO expert on your side – someone who understands these algorithms and knows how to achieve ranking results based on them.

2. Loss of Powerful Backlinks

A strong backlinking strategy is essential to any successful SEO campaign. Backlinks are basically just links that are directed from one site to another. Having other websites include links to your pages shows Google that other sources find your site to be credible (and worth linking to).

In the past, backlinking was a numbers game, and it was smart to have a large number of backlinks directing to your site. But nowadays, it’s all about the quality backlinks, and 1 strong backlink (called a high-authority link) could be worth more than 100 weaker links.

If you somehow lose a high-authority backlink, this could result in some seriously decreased traffic. Unfortunately, restoring a lost backlink is challenging, so your best bet is to focus on developing a strong profile of solid backlinks to boost traffic once again.

3. Website Update Errors

Even the smallest, simplest website updates can wreak havoc on the integrity of your entire website when not properly implemented. Depending on the update error, you could be looking at some serious ranking issues, all thanks to a loss of traffic.

Luckily, it’s easier than ever to identify website update errors with technical SEO tools, like Screaming Frog. Tools like these are designed to generate detailed reports that highlight technical issues throughout your website.

4. Outdated Content & Keywords

Staying up-to-date with your content is one of the best things you can do to remain relevant on Google. Failing to update the outdated content and include relevant keywords could result in a major traffic hit, so always do your best to stay current with your audience.

The easiest way to confirm what’s causing your traffic drop is to visit your Analytics portal and find the pages that have experienced a traffic drop. Check out those pages to determine whether or not they need a content update or even an entire rewrite.

5. New Competitors Take the Lead

Even if you work in an extremely niche industry, chances are, you’re up against some tough competition. As your competitors rise on Google searches, your position as a leading result could be in jeopardy.

This is especially the case if a competitor bumps you out of the #1 position for search results relating to your main keyword. If your competition takes the #1 spot, more traffic will be funneled to that page, and your website could receive less traffic than ever.

Fixing this issue can be challenging as it takes a seasoned SEO professional to bring you back to the #1 spot with effective competitor analysis. At SGD, we can help you audit and outrank your competitors through quality content, strong backlinks, better keywords, and more.

6. Lack of Social Media Visibility

Social media is considered to be the leading source of website referrals and traffic. Whether you’re getting your referrals and click-throughs from YouTube videos or Instagram posts, these platforms are heavily responsible for directing people to your site.

If you’re slacking on your social media game, or heaven forbid you don’t have a social media presence at all, you can expect your traffic to plummet. Becoming more active on all social media platforms and doing social media marketing can fix this, but don’t expect to see immediate results.

7. Drop in Referral Traffic

Many sites rely heavily on referral traffic from other sources, especially affiliate sites. If that’s the case for you and you’ve noticed traffic results dropping, you’ll definitely want to check into these referrals to make sure your links are still up and running.

8. Page Speed Issues

Slow-loading pages are a major turn-off for website visitors. If your pages aren’t loading fast enough, your users won’t stick around to see what you’re offering, therefore lowering your overall traffic.

You can easily check your page speed by using Google’s new PageSpeed Tool. This feature uses real-time user data to give you full insight into how quickly your website pages are loading.

Get In Touch Today to Restore Lost Website Traffic

Now that you’ve familiarised yourself with some of the potential causes of your dropped traffic, you should have a much better idea of how to fix the issue. More often than not, it comes down to an SEO-related issue, so having a reliable SEO expert on your side is the best thing you can do.

The SEO experts at SGD understand the ins and outs of website traffic monitoring, Google ranking algorithms, quality content, social media traffic, and more. Whether you’re currently experiencing traffic issues or just want to get ahead of the competition, we can help!