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You need more search engine traffic to rank higher in organic search results. However, if your site is not in the top search results, it could result in a loss of traffic, earnings, or company. Many factors can cause rapid drops in website traffic. You can determine the reasons for your website traffic to return to normal.
Here are the 20 Possible Reasons Why Your Search Traffic & Ranking Might be Dropping
You are Tracking the Incorrect Rankings
Your website may have been online for many years and you might have used keywords that are no longer relevant or outdated. Take a look at your search behavior. Consider your search behavior. Many people search for the same query but need help finding an answer. The solution to their issue will appear in the top search results once they type it in more simply or naturally. Search engines have just become aware of this behavior. Instead of only using a few key terms, search engines rank websites by scoring paragraphs that contain natural language. Examine your keyword phrases, keywords, and other pertinent terms. You need to be conscious of the mistakes in your rankings and adjust your strategy if you utilize more generic keywords or phrases than you should.
Lost Links
Another explanation for your website's ranking decline is the loss of links. You can examine your website and see if there have been any lost links in the last 90 days using Majestic, Ahrefs, or any other tool. Cognitive Search Engine Optimization provides a free backlink-checking tool that can deliver data in almost real-time. You may then examine your hyperlink profile thanks to this. Your rankings may be declining because you may have lost a lot of links. You must read: to learn more about lost connections.
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Is your hyperlink drop sitewide?
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Are there links on your site that have suffered a decline in position?
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Is there ever a drop in the number of inbound links to your pages?
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Are there any links that are no longer working on your site? These links may be linking to other pages with lower rankings.
Your website may need to be fixed or lose inbound links. You'll need to determine how they got there and why they aren't damaged. They may be taken away, changed, or retained. To determine your next steps, each link should be checked separately.
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If the links were intentionally removed, it could indicate that they weren't natural hyperlinks. Google may also penalize them if they aren't already. Allow these links to go.
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Sometimes links can break or change during site updates. You can force the site owner into animating them in these instances.
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If the internal links are replaced by new connections to a source other than yours, you can still link to them.
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You can always replace broken links with newer, more functional ones.
It is wise to spend money on connection-tracking software to keep lost links from harming your rankings. Before your rankings drop, you can take precautions and fix mistakes.
Broken Redirects
Create a new website, move to a different server, or make structural modifications to your site. You may see a drop in rankings. When employing a 301 redirect, you must also ensure that XML sitemaps, Canonical Tags, and Hyperlinks are updated. A 301 redirect is comparable to an online notice of a change of address. This notification will be shown to search engines to inform them that a page, a number of pages, or the entire website has been transferred. This note requests that website visitors be sent to your new address, not your previous one. You will only lose positions if you do it correctly. Search engines will also communicate both your old and new internet addresses.
Manual Actions
If you see a sudden and significant decline in your website rating, Google may penalize it. These are manual tasks carried out by a worker, not as a result of algorithmic changes. Your website's position on search engines like Yahoo and Bing proves that Google has penalized your site. You will want to fix the problem and lift the penalty if it is manual or automatic. You can start by checking your Google Hunt Console account's notifications. Search for warnings in the Manual Actions Section or the messages menu. Any time a Google employee determines that your website does not adhere to their rules will be shown in the report. You can solve the problem using the advice and information in this report.
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Algorithm changes
Google continually looks for methods to enhance its algorithms to produce better outcomes and tactics. These changes have harmed many websites, and some are now ranked lower. You may be aware of Google's adjustments by utilizing a cross-channel marketing plan and traffic strategy that incorporates social media.
Google Natural Changes
Your search engine rankings may occasionally decline without any apparent reason related to your website. Google has changed the results a lot based on user activity. If there is an unexpected increase in searches for a subject, Google may display more recent results. Google will be able to push the inert material down as a result. If your material fits within the second group, your rating will suffer.
Geolocation Discrepancies
The research's location will impact the position. It would help you compare your ranks within a particular area to understand your status better. For instance, 67% of the time, your rank will be different from other areas if you place in the top 30 for a keyword or phrase. You might have observed that your search results could differ from those of another person conducting the exact search. If you search while connected to your Google account, you will also see different results; you may research after logging out. Before showing you search results, Google will consider the websites you have already visited, your location, and the device you are using.
Competitors from Other Websites
Despite doing everything correctly, if you lose visitors, your rankings will suffer. This can be the result of your competitors performing better. Keep an eye on your competitors' social media activity, link-building strategies, and content marketing. To see the changes made by your competitors, you can use tools like Versionista or Wayback Machine. Once you understand better what your competition has done to surpass you, you can make the necessary modifications.
Page Speed
The speed at which your website's articles load will impact your rankings. This will also affect the experience of your visitors. People want to load before your material loads, so pages that take longer have more excellent bounce rates. The new Google PageSpeed Tool can be used to assess your website's performance. Actual user data has been added to this tool in an update. The pages are evaluated based on how quickly they load.
Server Difficulties
An empty markup function for Googlebot or a malfunctioning caching part can also lead to server issues. Any server difficulties must be resolved immediately. Check your server logs first for issues. You can also utilize Google's Fetch and Render tools to check how URLs on your website are crawled or left.
Bad Quality Link Penalties
Not every link is created equally. Websites that employ stale or spammy link-building techniques risk penalties from Google. In the opening paragraph of their Search Console Help Section titled Link Schemes, Google clarifies what it deems to be a low-profile link. To avoid getting punished by Google, you can develop a high-quality link-building strategy. You will increase your organic search traffic as a result. Here are some tips for creating good links:
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Rebuild your damaged links and make them more valuable.
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PR can be used to be mentioned in online articles and news posts.
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Create unique content and promote it on social media so people can find it.
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See the SEJ Link Building Guide.
Click-Through Rate Changes
When ranking websites, Google is giving user experience more consideration. To view the flat rate speed of your website over the previous 90 days, check your Google Hunt Console (CTR). A high bounce rate could indicate that people leave quickly after clicking on your website. Google may lower your rank based on user feedback.
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If you discover that your CTR is falling, here are some suggestions:
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Your webpage is taking too much time to load.
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Have you added a popup to your website recently?
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Are you a page title changer?
Recent Website Redesigns and Changes
If you decide to revamp your web design, you want to maintain visitors and search engine rankings. You can take these actions to assist and boost your rankings. Verify that the outside of your 301 redirects has been adequately mapped. You should examine the link structure to ensure your inbound links on your new website function properly. Before you launch your new website, obtain baseline analytics reports such as site audit traffic, ranking tracker, and webpage URL mapping. By paying close attention to the essential components of your redesign, you may prevent detrimental SEO consequences and rank improvements.
Read More: How to Increase Website Traffic With a Winning SEO Strategy
Simple Technical Problems
Your website content is built on a technical SEO base. This aspect of SEO controls how search engines crawl and index your content. Search engines are evolving to become more advanced. Accordingly, technological SEO is developing. The most typical technical SEO errors are: How grave is it? These are the most frequent issues that affect your website's traffic and search engine rankings. Being knowledgeable about search engine optimization concerns can help you maintain your website.
Navigation Internal
Customers can find out where and what information is available on your website thanks to your navigation. You should have a shallow flat structure with no more than two levels for internal navigation. Customers are more likely to leave your business if they have to click fewer times to find what they're looking for. The crawling of content hidden on your website by search engines may halt. Your ranking may suffer as a result, and traffic to crucial content areas may decrease. Your internal connection techniques are crucial to customer retention and search engine optimization. Making your internal links and navigation clear and logical will increase client retention. Search engines will immediately identify what your website is about using keyword-rich inner linking. This will allow search engines to determine if the content is relevant to any questions.
Server Overload
Your server could overload and crash if it isn't prepared for sudden spikes in traffic. Compared to users, shared servers are more susceptible to traffic outages. Many hosting plans will shut down your website if you over your bandwidth allotment. This can occasionally occur if your website is highlighted on a widely visited website. Search engines will not rank websites with excessive downtime.
Meta Data
To assess what information your website offers, search engines employ metadata (also known as meta tags). One of the most crucial pieces of metadata that will raise your search engine optimization results is your title tag. Other metadata that may help your website rank better include headers and meta-tag descriptions. When supplying your metadata, be consistent. Make sure the meta description is updated, for instance, if the article length on your website changes. It's vital to avoid using generic titles like "Home" or duplicating your meta information. Use title tags with your goal term in them that are more precise. Using the same name on multiple pages will confuse users and lead to you competing in the SERPs.
Source and Type of Traffic
Site traffic is not just the number of visitors to your site, the number of pages clicked, and the time spent on each page. Traffic can come in many forms, including:
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Email marketing.
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Referrals.
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Direct traffic.
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Organic search.
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Paid search.
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Social networking.
Which is the best? It all comes down to which origin generates more engagement, bounces at a lower rate, and converts the most. Instant traffic occurs when someone enters your URL into an address bar. While this may not be critical for certain positions, it is essential because:
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Because they know you well and are interested in what you have to offer, visitors return to your site again and again.
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Visitors will visit your site because they already know you as an expert in your field.
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Google and social media changes don't affect direct traffic. Instead, it serves as an independent source of visitors.
You can keep an eye on your guide traffic statistics using your Google Analytics dashboard. To improve your direct traffic, you need to have a catchy and understandable name. You should always provide value and knowledgeable guidance to your website visitors. This will demonstrate their level of expertise in your area.
Time on the Site
Your search results can be affected by user engagement. Even though we don't know what Google is looking at, Google Analytics allows you to quantify a few metrics (bounce speed and average page time. These measurements need to be determined whether you provide a superior user experience. Do you want your bounce rate to go down? These 20 tested techniques explained in this article will help to reduce your high website bounce rate.
Duplicate Content
Large groups of articles that appear nearby or inside domains and are substantially similar to or identical to other content are called duplicate content by Google. Examine the Google content crawling algorithm. This only sometimes leads to lower search engine results and is not always malicious or dishonest. Your website will be penalized if articles are intentionally copied to boost traffic and manipulate rankings. Your rankings could deteriorate, and in the worst event, Google might delete your website from its index altogether.
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Conclusion
With a strategy, growing website traffic or getting high search engine results is possible. Avoid attempting to effect change by dubious means. You'll only end up dissatisfied. To increase your internet presence and expand your business, keep up with the most recent developments and best practices.
