Google and other search engines frequently index websites, which means your business website can be “re-assessed” frequently to determine whether or not it is providing consistent value to searchers. Over time, you may find that your website traffic is beginning to decrease. This can happen for a number of reasons, many of which are easily fixable. Here are some common explanations for a drop in the number of visitors to your website and how they can be remedied.

Does Your Business Have a Mobile-Friendly “Responsive” Website Design?

You have probably heard this a thousand times by now, but it is imperative that your business has a website with a responsive design. If it doesn’t, you can expect that your traffic and standing in search engine results pages will sink down into obscurity as Google and other search engines deem your site less than valuable to mobile users.

Check Your Keywords.

Keywords may hold the key to a drop in business website traffic for a couple of reasons. First, keywords that may have been trending last year may not be so hot now. It is worth doing some keyword research to find out how you might tweak your content to reach your audience.

If you find that you may have been “keyword stuffing,” a method where you use the same keyword repeatedly (and unnaturally) throughout a page of text or even your entire website, you may be suffering from a penalty from Google. In this case, perform keyword research and use a variety of related terms, including long-tail keywords, to avoid being penalized instead of using the same term or terms over and over.

Learn more about how to perform keyword research here.

Monitor Your Domain Authority.

Every website has a domain authority—a number out of 100 that tells Google how high quality your website is—based on a number of factors including the number of pages on your business website, how often you add new content, the quality of your links, and more. Check your domain authority with this handy tool from Moz to get a baseline number and then periodically to monitor for any drops, signaling that Google finds your site is becoming less valuable to visitors (i.e. drop in SERPS). If your domain authority is dropping, it’s time to start adjusting your strategy by adding more relevant, quality content for your audience and building up your links.

Look at Your Backlinks.

Link building is a highly effective way to increase your website traffic, but spammy or low-quality links can get your website penalized and cause your site to drop like a rock in search results thanks to Google’s famed Penguin updates. It is a good idea to be proactive and check your links now, instead of after the fact. Check out the article, How to Conduct a Link Audit, from Search Engine Watch, for detailed instructions on how this.

Check Google Analytics.

Take a look at your performance data in Google Analytics. If the traffic to specific pages has gone down, it may be time to beef up your content to add value for your visitors. Perform a keyword search for poorly performing pages using a search engine “search” box to see what your competitors who are taking the first several spots in search results are doing right. Look at what kind of content they are providing and the keywords they are using. Adjust your website content accordingly. Of course, make sure you use your own words so you don’t get penalized for duplicate content.

If you have taken a look at the potential issues above and still can’t figure out why your business website traffic is dropping, or if you don’t want to do the troubleshooting yourself, get in touch with us. We can help assess why visits to your website are going down and how to fix it. Contact us today to learn more.