Description: Digital marketers are often faced with the challenge of a decline in website traffic. To overcome this challenge, there is a list of measures digital marketers. We go through each measure taken by digital marketers to arrest a decline in website traffic.
Decline in Website Traffic
The task of arresting a decline in website traffic is multi-fold. Not only is there a need to arrest the decline and turning it around, but digital marketers also have to find the reason behind the decline.
This is not an unusual problem in the world of digital marketing space. Companies often have to face a period of a drastic drop in traffic. The reasons are sometimes organic, and other times the result of direct action from another party (search engines).
In this article, we go through the measures adopted by digital markers to arrest a decline in website traffic.
Check the Main Sources of Traffic
Sometimes, companies scour all avenues to find the reason behind their falling traffic without checking the original source of traffic. Often, companies have paid traffic coming through their website. If the investment in paid traffic stopped, it is likely there was a decline in website traffic.
Digital marketers should also check for changes in branded traffic. Branded traffic refers specifically to visitors coming to the website directly or typing the website’s name on a search engine and jumping on the link. If there is a fall in branded traffic, the issue may be rooted in the perception of the brand in the market.
Possible Penalties
If the traffic from search engines like Google is down, the reason could be a penalty. Google and other search engines often hand out penalties to websites which can cause sudden traffic drop.
To check if a website has been given a penalty, digital marketers can check on Google Search Console. Sometimes, there are no notifications on the search console either. This could mean the website has been blacklisted by the search engine. The only way to come back from being blacklisted is by creating quality content and imbibing good content practices.
Losing Backlinks
A sharp decline in website traffic could be caused by a fall in backlinks. Content and backlinks form the core of SEO and even a small fall in backlinks can cause a nosedive in Google search rankings.
The best way to negate this problem is to always keep track of backlinks and invest time and resources in link building. Losing backlinks is normal, but the solution is to always find new places for link building.
Competition Rising
Sometimes a niche can get overcrowded. There are websites rising on Google search rankings every day. A website may witness a fall in traffic if new rising competitors take a chunk of share of a particular keyword.
To beat this problem, the solution is to keep investing in new and original content while keeping an eye on new competition. It is also advisable to branch out and find new topics and keywords to establish another stream of traffic.
Losing it to Featured Snippets
Google’s featured snippets are a hit amongst searchers around the world. If a website is ranked below a featured snippet on a popular keyword, chances are there will be a decline in website traffic.
The only way to deal with this is to create new content which beats the existing featured snippet. This requires hard and raw competitiveness from content creators and digital marketers. Another way to tackle this is to find a new keyword which is easier to target. A two-pronged strategy works best in such cases. On one hand, there should be a push for more quality in content, and on the other, there must be an effort to find better keywords.
User Experience Issues
UX problems are not new. Now, web developers have to create desktop and mobile versions of the same website while maintaining optimal UX. Often, doing this becomes very hard.
The best way to tackle UX issues is to get customer feedback. Customers can best define the problems they face and where the website is lacking. If user feedback is hard to get, digital marketers have to work with web developers and designers to re-create the website for a more holistic experience.
About the Author – Gaurav Heera is a well-known content strategist and digital marketing entrepreneur. He currently heads operations at DelhiCourses.in, a place ranked #1 consistently for its digital marketing course in Delhi. The institute also offers courses in other fields such as cyber security, business analytics, and cloud computing.
