You wake up one day and find the traffic to your website has tanked. You ask yourself, why? Sometimes you cannot identify what happened, but you can work on making sure you have done everything possible to help with your organic and page rankings.
Do not panic. Take the time to methodically go through the steps below. This should help you identify trends or changes you can work on to fix the reduction in traffic.
STEP 1.
Check Your Google Webmaster Tools for Any Google Penalties.
If you have any penalties identify and fix them. If not, move to the next step.
STEP 2.
Dig Deeper.
Spend time reviewing your Google Analytics. You may see trends that will assist you in identifying where your drop in your traffic has occurred. A few examples of things to look for: Did visitor’s time on your site drop? Did page visits to a specific page drop? Look for trends that will help you
identify what changes need to be made on your site.
STEP 3.
Has Your Page Rank Dropped?
Google ranks your page’s authority on a 0-10 scale. The higher the number, the more authoritative your page is.
STEP 4.
Evaluate Your Sitemap.
A sitemap tells search engines when new pages have been added and how often to check back for changes on specific pages. Make sure all of your website pages and landing pages are included on your sitemap. If your website does not have a sitemap… add one!
STEP 5.
Review Your Content.
Make sure that your keyword appears in your description tag, H1 tag (traditionally the headline) and in the body of the document. Whenever you add new or make changes to content, notify Pingler of the changes so the robots will come and crawl your site.
Many people think that once a website gets built that’s all they have to do. Visitors will magically just show up. Let’s put this urban myth to bed for all time… it just ‘ain’t gonna happen’. Websites that rank well and have good traffic are worked on regularly. If you get nothing else from this week’s Rex rant… get this one. Search engines LOVE current, relevant content.
A successful organic website is important whether or not you choose to add traffic non-organically, e.g., by paying for traffic with pay per click or pay per thousand impressions to get traffic there…
I hope these tips help you grow your business.
