Diagnosing and resolving declining organic traffic requires a comprehensive approach. Here are 13 questions to guide you through the process:
- Has there been a recent algorithm update? Check if major search engines like Google have released any algorithm updates that might have impacted your website’s rankings.
- Are there any technical issues with the website? Check for crawl errors, site speed issues, mobile-friendliness, and other technical SEO issues that could be affecting your organic traffic.
- Have you made any recent changes to the website? Review any recent changes to the website, such as redesigns, migrations, or updates, that could have affected SEO performance.
- Are there any manual actions against the website? Check if your website has received any manual actions or penalties from search engines that could be impacting organic traffic.
- Has there been a drop in keyword rankings? Monitor changes in keyword rankings to identify if specific keywords or pages have experienced a decline in visibility.
- Are there any issues with content quality or relevance? Evaluate the quality and relevance of your website’s content to ensure it meets the needs of your target audience and aligns with search intent.
- Is the website experiencing any indexing issues? Check if your website’s pages are being properly indexed by search engines and investigate any potential indexing issues.
- Have there been changes in competitor strategies? Analyze the SEO strategies of your competitors to identify any shifts that could be impacting your organic traffic.
- Are there any external factors affecting traffic? Consider external factors such as seasonality, market trends, or changes in user behavior that could be influencing organic traffic.
- Have you lost any backlinks or experienced a decrease in domain authority? Monitor changes in your website’s backlink profile and domain authority to identify any decreases that could be impacting organic traffic.
- Are there any issues with internal linking and site structure? Review your website’s internal linking structure to ensure it facilitates navigation and distributes link equity effectively.
- Are you targeting the right keywords? Reevaluate your keyword targeting strategy to ensure you are targeting relevant keywords with sufficient search volume and competition.
- Are you actively promoting your content? Ensure you are actively promoting your content through channels like social media, email marketing, and influencer outreach to increase visibility and attract organic traffic.