Efficient diagnosis is vital to solving traffic drops & search engine rankings. The factors responsible for your traffic dropping and search rankings are often difficult to discover. But, many things can result from this: a change in the Google algorithm, the inability of your server to handle the bandwidth well, a technical error, or a link that stops sending traffic suddenly. The list is endless. You need to know these issues and tackle them, so your business does not suffer. Your best bet to finding these issues and resolving them is by hiring a reliable SEO company to handle all your business needs on Search Engine Optimization, and MyCity Social is just what you need. As a reputable SEO company that has been in the business of handling customer’s SEO problems in Tampa and fostering solutions, it is in your best interest for us to take on this journey with you. Let’s look at some SEO issues that can affect your search rankings and cause a traffic drop.
Issues That Can Make Search Rankings Drop
- On-site causes of search engine ranking drop
- Your site has not been updated in a long while.
Although the bulk of this depends on your field, constant updates on your site are relevant to stay in the competition. A competitor analysis will show you areas to improve to keep up with other sites in your specific field. But generally, if your site is stagnant and does not grow in any way in terms of links, content, or other activities, you may not benefit from this growth. Going the long road, waiting for years for traffic is indeed helpful, but it is scarce. If you don’t make any move, how do you expect to hit any competitive benefit?
You could use a simple strategy, something as small as blogging daily, and it is true if you don’t put in any real effort into your blog. You could even try something more complex that needs lots of hard work before seeing improvement. If you only blog on rare occasions, it may not provide enough fresh content for link generation needs to keep your site relevant in your niche. When you conduct a competitor analysis, you can discover what your competitors are doing differently to get to the SERP top.
- There have been no significant changes to your content
This goes a long way in avoiding pitfalls in your search rankings. If there have been no changes to your content, you will shoot the wrong targets for traffic and search engine rankings. In highly competitive niches where you must update the site often to remain on the first page, you may lose ground simply because you were irrelevant.
By irrelevant, it means not updating your site or changing content at all, so your site gives a result that is out of date or irrelevant.
- Your site is updated with a new design
If you update your site using a new design, it does not guarantee that you’ll have excessive traffic. This is mostly applicable when you have tried redirects and other problems that may hinder your site’s crawling and indexing ability. One problem that can result in a loss in search rankings is if the site’s theme is JavaScript-based. It may interfere with your crawling and indexing. And if Google can’t index or crawl your site, your traffic will automatically drop as well as your rankings. That’s why you need an SEO professional as part of your website team. They are well-trained to detect what a regular developer may not notice. A good SEO expert who is well aware of server-side issues can help you fix these issues and improve your SERP performance.
- You removed traffic-driving Content
Let’s assume you embarked on a new project involving a content audit. One valuable suggestion is to get rid of duplicate content from your site. But there’s a small challenge; this audit does not note whether these pages are receiving traffic or not, just the page quality. What happens here is that your content audit isn’t favoring you. Content goes beyond just posting; there’s more to it.
If your site has thin, duplicate content and you don’t handle technical SEO by checking which pages are getting content and those that are not, your awesome content won’t matter.
Irrelevant Content, No Matter How Thoughtful, Will Make You Lose Traffic
- Robots.txt file can result in indexing problems
This problem is a common on-site technical error. Many may not know, but you can disable crawling for your pages because you configured your robots.txt. wrongly. This file is a deal-breaker for your crawling and indexing, and if not careful, it can negatively affect your search rankings and traffic.
- Off-site causes of fall in search engine rankings
Off-site reasons can also result in traffic and ranking drops. It requires more correlative analysis and deeper digging. For instance, if you lose a link from a site with heavy traffic, it can cause a drop in your traffic.
- Removal of links from your site
This is a common occurrence. If you experience a fall in traffic to your site, you may check to know if you’ve lost a link that used to generate traffic to you before concluding that it is a penalty. Mastering the skill of conducting link profile audits is a great way to analyze these links.
- A site linking to you went down
If a site linking directed to you goes down permanently, you may experience a loss of traffic permanently from that site. Most times, you can’t stop this from happening. All you need to do is replace the site with another by getting another link. When you detect this, work on linking other sites to you so you can boost traffic.
- Sites linked to your site don’t receive traffic any longer
If sites linked to you face a penalty and are removed from Google’s index, you tend to lose traffic from those sites. Sadly, you may not easily point this out. That’s why link acquisition is vital to your success when you experience such situations like this.
- Changes on the Google SERPs:
- Changes in a featured or rich snippet
If you have a snippet, be it a featured snippet or a rich snippet driving traffic to your site, your traffic may drop overnight if Google’s SERP changes and stops displaying the snippet. Similarly, a competitor may post a resource with higher quality content, and it will knock yours out. If various SERPs change, you must first evaluate them and determine if your traffic loss has anything to do with SERP elements.
- Changes in audience search behavior
Audience search behavior may change with time, causing less traffic to a page that once ranked on SERP. This may happen due to minor issues like a global pandemic or lesser things such as products or services in vogue. Customers are often unpredictable, and they can change their minds at any time. It is in their nature. If you want to compete effectively in SEO, be prepared to experience drops in traffic due to seasonal changes.
- Errors on the Server Side That Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
There are certain errors in Google analytics and how to process it. Although it may not indicate a drop in search engine rankings, it is an indicator of danger. When you have an active SEO online presence, you can easily know when these issues happen. If you’re implementing Google analytics, ensure it is done well.
If you experience issues with your server running to serve your site, it is a sign of trouble. The concept of search engine rankings and traffic is to have your website running for a good length of time. Google won’t want to recommend your site as the best answer if your users experience hitches.
What Do You Do When You Experience These Issues?
When you experience search ranking and traffic drops, the best thing is to report such issues and fix them immediately. Quick diagnosis is essential to resolving traffic drops. Remember to stay calm, don’t panic. Panicking won’t solve anything but will escalate things. Pull yourself together and analyze what the problem is. The answer may involve something as simple as clicking on a link. When you run a quick diagnosis on the problem, a possible solution will pop up to fix or repair search ranking drops.
How Can We Help You?
When you work with us, we guarantee your website safety and help boost your site’s traffic. Also, you’ll be assured that your website is in the right hands. Peace of mind is vital, and that’s what you’ll benefit from working with us.
Contact Us
We cannot overemphasize the importance of SEO in traffic generation and search rankings. Without effective SEO strategies in place and expert SEO consultants to handle your site, you may experience the issues mentioned above, and your site will suffer for it. Why have losses when you can hire MyCity Social today to give you premium SEO and traffic generation? Contact us today to fix all your SEO issues in Tampa.
