Organic traffic is one of the most important metrics when it comes to analyzing how well your business’s website is performing because it shows the number of users that are finding your website in the search results rather than going to the site directly. For instance, if you were to Google something like “Pizza Near Me”, and then clicked on a pizza shop’s website that appeared in the search engine results page, your click would be categorized as organic traffic. This metric is extremely important because, generally speaking, higher traffic to your website results in more conversions, in-turn making your business more money. With this being said, drops in organic traffic can be concerning, but there are several potential causes for the drop and some possible ways to fix them!
Seasonalities
One common reason for a drop in organic traffic is a seasonality. A seasonality is a fluctuation of traffic that is caused by the time of year. These trends usually repeat year after year. For example, if you ran a snow plowing business, your website’s traffic would be highest in the winter months, then drop during the summer months, and then increase again when winter rolls around once again. Businesses that have nothing to do with weather can experience seasonalities too, like an accountant whose traffic ramps up during tax season. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot you can do about your organic traffic dropping due to seasonality without changing your whole business model. If you run a business that experiences seasonalities, try to focus on year-over-year metrics rather than month-to-month.
Technical Issues
Another common cause of organic traffic dropping is a technical issue on the website. These technical issues are usually something that is hindering Google’s ability to crawl and index your website. The cause of these issues could be errors in code, a problem with your website host, or a plethora of other things. Google also has the ability to manually send you down the search results rankings if your website doesn’t comply with guidelines or if you are using black hat SEO techniques. These technical issues can affect your whole website or just one page, so looking into the backend of your website may be your best bet to fix these problems. If you have received a manual action penalty, you can use Google Search Console to view and fix the problem!
Algorithm Changes
One other cause of your website’s drop in organic traffic could be a change in the Google algorithm. Google is constantly looking for ways to improve their users’ experience, so they often change the way they assess content. No matter the size of the update, some page’s search results ranking will be affected, which will usually decrease organic traffic for pages that rank lower. The best way to make sure your website is staying up to date with the Google algorithm is by working with a search engine optimization expert, like our team here at Boston Web Marketing!
Contact Boston Web Marketing!
If you have any questions about your website’s performance or need help improving your search results rankings, contact our SEO specialists at Boston Web Marketing! We help businesses in almost every industry with digital marketing and SEO services! Give us a call today at (857) 526-0096, or fill out the contact form on our website.