The internet has been an important tool for business owners for over a decade now. However, in the past five years or so, it is now more important than ever for your business to have an online presence. Building your business’s website is the first step to effectively market and grow your business. Once you have your website up and running you’ll want to make sure it’s in tip top condition. However, there will be times when traffic to your site drops unexpectedly. It can be frustrating trying to figure out what went wrong. Thankfully, today’s blog is here to give you possible reasons and show you what to do about it.
Google Search Console
If your website is experiencing slower traffic than usual then one of the first actions you’ll want to take is to check out your Google Search Console. The reason for this is because it can tell you so much of what’s happening with your website. One of the most important features it can tell you is data relating to your website’s organic traffic.
It’s this reason that Search Console should be your starting point for checking slowdown incidents. The data that you are able to gather will allow you to run some basic diagnostics and ask some starting questions. These questions you should be asking are when did the drop start? Did any changes you recently made possibly affect this? Did you lose rankings for some of your top keywords? Is there an indexing issue?
This is without a doubt, the first thing you should do if your website is experiencing a slowdown. Google Search Console can be an excellent starting point. However, if the problem persists or you weren’t able to find an answer, there are other things you can do.
The Tracking Code
Another tactic you can try if you’re having slow traffic is to check your website’s tracking code. This is because that for random reasons, unreliable site data can cause traffic drops. If you have a coded website this could especially be the reason.
Sometimes changes you made to your website or custom analytical plug-ins can lead to problems for the tracking code. So, to save yourself the trouble of looking in more complicated areas, double-check your site’s tracking code before anything else.
Make sure that your tracking code is properly installed. From there, you can go to the tracking code section, find it at Admin → Tracking Info → Tracking Code. You’ll want to look at its status and it should tell you if it is working as intended.
Algorithm Updates
Google is an industry giant. There’s no denying that fact. We’re all no strangers to the constant updates that they announce throughout the year. Sometimes, these updates can change their algorithm for their search engine and that can affect your website’s traffic.
One of the easiest ways to check if their updates are having a real effect on your traffic numbers is to ask Google themselves. Another way to see what is being affected is to make use of tools such as Mozcast from Moz.com and the SEMrush Sensor from SEMrush. You can also use Algoroo as a tool. It’s available free of charge.
Google updates can do a lot of good for websites. It’s just that sometimes random things can negatively affect your website. The good thing here is that there are plenty of tools for you to use in order to repair the damage.
Slow Domain Hosts
One of the key performing factors of your website is the page speed. In fact, Google has stated several times over the years how important your website’s loading speed is when it comes to driving traffic to it. A reason that you could be experiencing slow traffic or a drop is that your website is being hosted on a slow server.
It’s understandable that if you’re a smaller business or are looking to save money that a cheap hosting site sounds like the way to go. However, it can actually cost you traffic to your website. Have no fear, there is an alternative solution to this.
Virtual private servers and dedicated servers are a common solution and they do work well for most of the sites. If your business decides to migrate to these servers, you will save yourself a lot of headaches down the road. They can be more expensive, but rest assured that it’s worth the cost.
Negative SEO
This is the absolute worst-case scenario when it comes to slow website traffic. It is also the rarest situation, so it will probably not affect most websites. It is worth talking about, however, just so that you’re aware of it.
Negative SEO is the practice of implementing black hat SEO techniques on another site. Usually, an SEO attack is unleashed by a disgruntled competitor and his or her minions with the goal of reducing that site’s rankings.
If you happen to notice a recent and sudden drop in your search traffic, there is a chance your website is a victim of negative SEO. Provided you haven’t made any SEO mistakes yourself and have not changed your normal procedures. Be careful to not get carried away when you see a sudden drop. Just know your normal SEO performance and contact the search engine that you are performing your SEO under and contact a specialist for a diagnostic.
Conclusion
These are just some of the reasons why your website’s traffic is experiencing a slowdown. The thing to remember here is that there are things you can do to change that. Hopefully, this blog has given you some insight into how websites work and what you can do to make sure you can handle your slowdowns. If you need any help or need any of the services we discussed today, visit us at: https://anytimedigitalmarketing.com/ to see how we can help you to grow your business.
