What Needs to Check If Your Website Traffic Drops Suddenly?

Recently updated: January 4th, 2019

Website traffic is like wheels to all your digital efforts. The more traffic to your website, the more you get out of all you put in to have a stronger online presence for your brand.  But what if you see an unexpected drop in your website traffic? It is really one of the most horrifying incidences you might have faced for your website.

Website traffic is something very crucial you will need when you are looking to make your brand known, make the relationship and ultimately sell your products or services.  So a fall in your website traffic means you are going to suffer a huge loss.

There are many reasons that could trigger a drop in the web traffic. From changes to the website, excess SEO, algorithm updates by Google to poor quality content, a slew of factors can make your website traffic go down horribly.

Also, a time period is a reason for web traffic drops. For example, if you sell such products or services that people do not need for a particular time, your web traffic will drop during that period. It will start improving as the time period wanes. Whatever the reason or reasons, it is time to think about what you should do. Lets us have a look at what you should check for when your website traffic is falling at an unexpected pace.

Check if tracking code is there

Sometimes, your website traffic has not gone down indeed. You see this problem because tracking is missing. So before you do anything, check for the code if it is there. If the code is missing, implement it and see whether the traffic improves or not. If you have not lost your website traffic genuinely, you will certainly see it improve as the code is implemented. If it does not, go ahead and take the next step to find out the area where you have lost the traffic.

Look at the sources your website gets traffic from

When traffic dips, you should dig into where you are losing the traffic rather than take a look at the number. The prominent sources from which traffic may come to your website are organic, paid, referral, social, direct, and email.

Once you know where you are losing on traffic, you would be able to troubleshoot the problem effectively. For example, the traffic coming from social sites has dipped, you need to focus more on your social strategy and put in more of your effort into it.

This not just saves time but also your resources and money. Also, you manage to keep a balance in your effort to driving traffic to your website.

This makes it easy for you to go in the right direction to fast recover the traffic loss.  Use Google webmaster tools to figure out where you are losing traffic.

Have a look at technical aspects of your website 

If direct traffic has gone down significantly, you should go through the technical aspects of your website. One of the reasons for a drop in direct traffic is slow loading.  So try to figure out what is that is causing slow loading. It might be design changes, hosting issues or else. A website analysis will show the exact reasons for your website not performing well.  Google analytics is a great tool that will help you do it with ease and more accurately.

Ponder over your SEO 

This means you need to consider everything about it from Google algorithm, SEO practices you use, content, duplicacy or links and of course if your site is penalized.

Google updates its algorithm from time to time. This is mainly to penalize those sites getting rankings using unethical methods. But it may also those sites that use ethical practices.

You can use Google webmaster tools to learn how the new update has impacted your website traffic. Also, you can figure out the bad links and remove them.

Google also penalizes websites with low-quality content. So check the quality of content on your website.  Replace any duplicate content and use only the high-quality content that relates to your business and is easy for Google to crawl and index.

Think about new users vs. returning users

It is that important to know your users. When you know which type of traffic has dropped, you can isolate certain reasons for the traffic drop.

Let us understand with an example. If new users have taken a hit, this might be because there are issues with how users are searching your website. This does not mean you should do some new keyword research or Google has penalized your website.

But if there is a drop in returning users, this indicates that there could be some issues with site structure and user experience. Perhaps your site is often displaying 404 errors or your site is too slow to load, forcing users to leave the website.

Trend over time

When figuring out the reasons for the drop, look at trends over time for traffic as a whole and the associated segments.  Also, it is crucial to understand if the drop is normal if you are trying to understand the trends or business cycles through traffic medium, channel, and campaign. Once the baseline is established, you should try to find out if there are abnormal changes, and isolate the issues with cause and effect analysis.

Learn how to deal with traffic drops using the right tools

Drop in your website traffic is a big deal, and you should take it seriously. If not addressed effectively, it may cause your business to suffer an irreparable loss.

There are tools that can help you significantly. You can use them to figure out reasons for traffic fall and choose the right course of action. With the right training, you can apply them effectively. But it takes time, and you cannot wait until you learn how to use those tools and fix the problem. So what?

Outsource to a reputed internet marketing agency, and just focus on your business.