Traffic peaks and valleys are a natural part of the online world, but some can be due to larger causes affecting your site. When you’re trying to decide if your drops are just a regular dip in traffic or a sign of a major issue, you should make sure you check your Google Analytics account over a period of several months and the placement of your tracking information. Your dips may be due to the season, an event or a past holiday. If you notice commonalities in your traffic ebbs and flows year-to-year, you may not have a major problem lurking within your website. However, you should still check several things to make sure everything is working properly.
Have You Made Major Site Changes Recently?
Did you just undergo a total site redesign or hosting migration? Make sure every major tracking code was carried over to the newest version of your site. Without certain codes, search engine bots will be unable to crawl and index your site properly. To see if your site has any crawling issues or blocked pages, check the Crawl Errors section of your Google Search Console profile. If pages on your site are not being crawled due to blocked or missing URLS, you will be able to view which pages are experiencing issues and require 301 redirects to be written. After you have written redirects, you will be able to resubmit your sitemap for reindexing.
Do You Have Duplicate Content?
If you have replicated content throughout your site, you may be flagged for having thin content on your site. Make sure each page is filled with original, highly informative text and relevant links to other content on your site. Your text should be at least a few hundred words in order to add information, keywords and value to the page.
Was There A Recent Algorithm Update?
While major algorithm updates will be covered in SEO news online, it might take more time for smaller updates to roll through and receive coverage. Keep an eye out for updates by regularly running your website through SERP tools to check rank fluctuation for your pages and keywords. If you begin to notice changes, go through your site to see what aspects need additional optimization to meet the new standards.