5 Things to Check for When Your Organic Traffic Suddenly Drops

When you run an online business or have a website for your traditional business, your goal is to get as many people to flock to your site as possible. The more people that visit your site, the higher the chance you convert them to customers. This is most often done by using search engine optimization to improve your rank on Google and other search engines. 

While it would be lovely if the organic traffic to your site always grows or at least remains consistent, this isn’t often the case. Many websites suddenly lose a lot of their organic traffic and are confused as to why. This loss of traffic can lead to a lot of stress as well as lost revenue. Identifying the source of this loss can be tough, but there are some places you can look. 

With that in mind, this blog post is going to look at 5 things to check when your organic traffic suddenly drops. 

Did You Lose Some Quality Links?

One of the most important parts of SEO is backlinks. Backlinks are when a site links back to your site. It is a great way for new people to learn about and discover your site. Getting a backlink from a huge site or high authority web page can greatly increase organic traffic. However, just as gaining a backlink can help your traffic, losing one can hurt it. 

So if you notice your traffic taking a dip, it makes sense to check if you lost some high-quality links. Using online tools, you will be able to check and see if you have lost some links and if so, where they were from. You may decide to reach out to the site that removed your link or might decide to leave it alone. Either way, if you have lost some links, it is a good idea to start up your link-building efforts again to try and replace them.

Have There Been Changes to the Algorithm?

The Google algorithm is responsible for millions of headaches among SEO professionals and Digital Marketing Agencies. While there are a few major changes or updates that take place, there are hundreds of others that are much more minor. Either way, every one of these updates could potentially be the reason why your traffic is dropping. 

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One small policy change, a change in what influences ranking or one of a million other things can all have an impact on your traffic. It is a good idea to remain privy to these updates and stay up to date on the various developments in the world of SEO. You should try to identify what the update changed, if anything new is being penalized and how to ensure you abide by the new rules or algorithm. 

Has Your Site Been Penalized for Something?

Every now and then Google (either the algorithm or a human reviewer) may penalize a site. This could be for the site being deceptive, spamming links or keywords or simply breaking the guidelines in some other way. Even something like unnatural links to your site can lead to penalties.

If you are penalized, it is best to get rid of whatever caused the issue and ensure it never happens again. Also, be aware that being hacked can often lead to penalization as well. Once your site is cleaned up, you should begin to experience some traffic growth as long as you remain consistent and don’t go back to old habits. 

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If your website is hacked, Google will immediately deindex it from SERP. It will also label your website with the tag “this website is hacked”. Always choose your web hosting wisely. You can also check the top 10 web hosting providers and pick one which suits your needs.

Has Your Content Quality Diminished?

Another big reason your organic traffic might drop off of a cliff has to do with the quality of your content. When many sites are trying to grow and get consistent traffic, they will ensure their quality is incredibly high. Unfortunately, many sites will get complacent once they have the traffic, and produce lower-quality content. 

These sites will be penalized for this lower-quality content, as Google is all about boosting pages that provide value. If your content is lazy, thin or duplicated, your traffic numbers will suffer. Instead, ensure all content you put out is high quality and offers real value to readers and visitors. So if you notice your traffic taking a hint, ensure the content you put out is quality. Use natural and relevant anchor text, write content that provides value and check for errors. Things like content length and the use of images can also help. 

Are Competitors Taking Your Thunder?

The internet is home to millions and millions of websites, so there is no way you are the only site in a given niche. As a result, you surely have some competition. Your drop in traffic could simply boil down to your competitors taking it from you. If your competition is ranking higher than you know, it makes sense why your traffic would drop.

This could be from them adding new content, launching a new product or service or simply just improving their SEO efforts as a whole. Now the ball is in your court and you need to take the top ranking right back from them. This can be done from improving on-page SEO, getting quality backlinks and simply delivering consistently high-quality content. 

In conclusion, we hope this article has been able to help you check and identify why your organic traffic has dropped.