How To Handle Decreasing Traffic On Your Website
Posted on: 23 February 2016
Just because you are comfortable with your blog rankings, it doesn't mean you get to stop working on it. In fact, the moment you get too comfortable with your blog, you could see a drop in the traffic or, worse yet, the rankings. Why does it matter how high your website is ranked? When users put a keyword in a search engine, it is always better that your website is one of the first results that come up. As your website gains in rankings, your traffic should increase, but that is not the only way to gain traffic to your site. There are lots of ways to increase traffic, but what happens when you start to lose traffic? Here are some ways to narrow down the problem:
Determine When the Change Happened
There are several tools on the web that allow you to see how your traffic changes on a monthly basis, weekly basis, and even a daily basis. Once you have pinpointed exactly when the change occurred, you can then focus on what happened during this time. There is an algorithm that search engines use to determine what your ranking is. It is possible that the algorithm changed during this time which affected your ranking and ultimately your site's traffic. Additionally, you may have changed up the design of your site on this day or added some extra advertisements. It is important to keep an eye on the graphs anytime you make changes to your site or the search engine's algorithm changes. If you see that the algorithm has changed, then you want to adapt your blog to meet the new changes. If your site had changes made, consider changing it back to the original format.
Watch for Hackers
Even if your website has been hacked, it doesn't mean you are going to know it. There are numerous tools available to help you diagnose any vulnerabilities your website has. These tools can tell you if your site has been hacked by running scripts. If your site has been hacked, search engines will likely to detect this and decrease your rankings instantly causing a drop in traffic. If you find that your site has been hacked, you will then need to load a backup to your site. Additionally, you want to change all passwords and ftp. Once the problem has been removed, you want to be sure to keep your CMS updated regularly, backup your site often, and change your password occasionally.
Check Your Content for Spam
It is important to keep an eye on your website and competitors. Spam can trigger a penalty from the search engines causing a huge decrease in rankings and traffic. Your competitor has the ability to push over a large amount of spammy links to your site causing your website to be less than stellar to your visitors. Not only that, you want to be sure to conduct proper SEO techniques that won't penalize you by the search engines. You may think that placing keywords all over your content will attack visitors, but it can actually come across as spam if you are not following proper SEO rules. A web consultant or SEO firm can help ensure you are doing it right.
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