You are probably wondering why your website traffic is down. The web designer may have completed on-site SEO and you submitted your site to the search engines, and you have looked at all the obvious things, but none seem to be the cause.
Here are the Top 4 Reasons your website traffic has dropped off.
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Not investing in SEO
Probably the most common reason is that site owners wrongly believe that once you optimise your site, it is forever. SEO involves a constantly changing algorithm that will be used to regularly test your site to see if it meets the latest criteria. Also, with thousands of new websites going live daily, what you ranked for yesterday now has more competition and you need to revisit your SEO to keep ahead of the pack.
It’s not too late to get back in the ranking race!
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Changing search behaviour
At the beginning of search engines, users entered individual keywords to search for websites to match their enquiry.
Now, it’s long string keyword phrases. Phrases like How do I, Drs near me. Users are asking questions and the Google AI answers those questions in a range of ways. Ads, Shopping, Maps, Organic results.
Check Google Trends to see what’s happening with your keywords. https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=AU
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Poor content
Wondering why the phrase Content is King is still the buzz word in the digital world?
Look at it this way. Google is selling a service (searches), their customers (users) are using that service. If their customers can’t find what they are looking for on Google, they may vote with their fingers and jump over to Bing or Yahoo.
Therefore, we the suppliers of products and services must meet Googles standards of quality content for their customers. If we provide poor content, they move us down in the rankings and boost the sites that have a higher quality rating for their content.
So, if you want to be found, you must play by Google’s rules or languish away on Page 10+ in search results.
Quality content means well-written content that answer the questions users may have. It does NOT mean stuffing your pages with keywords!
The Number of words on a page is also important. If there are less than 300, your site will be flagged as low quality.
Duplicate content is a big no-no! Search engines can scan millions of pages an hour and it knows when your content isn’t original or unique, therefore not quality content.
Mobile Responsiveness
With 60% of searches happening on mobile devices, it’s clear that getting your website mobile friendly is critical. Your site will not rank well if it’s not set up to be viewed easily on mobiles.
When in doubt, search your own site on your phone and see what it looks like.
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Slow site speed
Fast loading sites are expected in good UX (user experience). Users have little patience for slow loading sites and will click off to somewhere else if loading takes more than 8 seconds.
PRIORITIES
- Optimise regularly
- Conduct on-site & off-site SEO
Contact MM to get an audit of your site and let us develop an SEO strategy to get your website ranking higher.
