Losing Google Search Traffic? Here’s What To Do About It

If you’ve checked your Google Analytics stats lately and noticed a significant drop in organic search traffic, you’re not alone. Welcome to the club of website owners who have unfortunately lost search traffic from Google in recent months or years.

With every new Google algorithm update, a new wave of site owners that experience a significant drop in traffic seems to pop up. It seems like no one’s safe these days from Google’s fickle changes.

If you’ve lost heaps of organic search traffic, here’s what to do about it:

Wait It Out & Don’t Do Anything Drastic

First, don’t panic.

Google updates tend to take 2 to 3 weeks to completely roll out, and it’s quite common for site traffic to fluctuate during this period. So definitely wait until the update is completely rolled out before you start to worry. Trust that Google is working out the kinks during rollout and that any anomalies will be corrected before the update is finished.

Also, remember that the Google algorithm changes often, so even if you experience a sudden drop in traffic, you can just as easily bounce back when Google decides to tweak the algorithm again. There are usually at least 4 Google updates each year, so it’s only a matter of time before your organic traffic changes (for better or worse).

Check For Errors and Competitor Changes

Not every drop is caused by an algorithm update. Before you put it down to Google, rule out two other causes.

• Problems on your own site. Open your website on a phone and a computer and check that everything looks and works as normal. Then log in to Google Search Console and look at the Pages report for pages Google can’t crawl or index, and at any manual actions or security issues. A site audit with a tool such as Semrush will also flag broken links, redirect loops and other errors. Fix anything major so Google can crawl and rank your pages again.
• A competitor moving ahead. Search for your main keywords and see who now ranks above you. Sometimes a competitor has improved their pages and pushed you down, which is a prompt to improve yours. Other times the change is temporary and rankings settle back within days.

Accept That There Is No One Solution

Because none of us know exactly how Google’s algorithm works or how it’s going to change next, we’ll never know exactly why our Google search traffic drops.

A lot of SEO experts will make educated guesses as to why certain sites were hit by a Google update, but there is no way to know for certain because we don’t have any visibility into the algorithm.

So if we don’t know exactly what the Google algorithm is looking for, we’ll never know exactly what to do to make it favour our site. Unfortunately there is no recipe to follow, no checklist to mark off, no one solution for how to get in Google’s good graces.

All we can really do is keep creating high quality content and use SEO best practices to up our chances at improving our Google search traffic.

Diversify Your Site Traffic

So is there anything you can actually do to recover from being hit by a Google update?

In addition to following normal SEO best practices, it’s a very good idea to start diversifying your website traffic.

If you are reliant on Google for providing the majority of your traffic, it’s time to put some of your eggs in another basket or two so that you aren’t so drastically affected by future Google updates.

• Email marketing: Do you have a mailing list? How often are you e-mailing it? If the answer to those questions are “no” or “not very often” respectively, now is the time to focus on it. Get into a habit of sending emails to your mailing list on a weekly or biweekly basis, and be sure to include links to a few of your blog posts or recent articles so that people can click on them and give you a little boost in site traffic.
  
• Social media: If you have a sizable following on a social media platform, why not share links to your site and blog posts there? Facebook is especially good for this, and Instagram stories can also work.
  
• Pinterest: Overshadowed by other platforms but not to be underestimated, Pinterest is a visual search engine that so many site owners are underusing. Start pinning your own articles to Pinterest and watch your site clicks increase. Need help with SEO on Pinterest? Get in touch with our Mildura SEO team.

Rock Solid Marketing are experts in digital marketing in Mildura, offering SEO and web design services. Contact us to learn more about how to work with our Mildura web design and SEO experts.