Website Traffic Down: The Causes and How to Find Them

For those of you who use the website for business, every click and every visit from users is useful. Therefore, it is important to maintain the stability of your website traffic for the sake of your business.

However, what happens if your website traffic suddenly drops drastically? This certainly raises some concerns, especially when it comes to the business operation. The following are some of the details about what causes website traffic down, as well as ways to keep your website traffic stable.

Several Causes of Decreased Website Traffic

The decline in website traffic certainly has its own causes. There are many causes for website traffic down, both from a technical and non-technical perspective. The following are some of the causes of decreased website traffic that you should know about:

1. Unoriginal Content 

Even though it sounds simple, unoriginal content can be one of the reasons website traffic down. Content that is not original will be detected as a duplicate because Google has an algorithm that can detect similarities in content between sites.

If you are caught duplicating content with the aim of increasing traffic, then your website will be penalized by Google. The penalty is a drop in ranking, or even worse, your website will be removed from Google's index so that no one can find it again.

2. Traffic Source

Good traffic sources are organic and inorganic sources obtained by competing in a healthy manner. In addition, good website traffic is not obtained through manipulation or violation of search engine rules.

If you get traffic by spamming links, don't be surprised if your website traffic suddenly drops dramatically. This is because search engines also have algorithms to detect website traffic obtained fraudulently.

Typically, fraudulently obtained links are irrelevant to your website niche, such as pornographic or poker content. Even though traffic increases, search engine algorithms will judge the quality of the backlinks as bad and can lower the website's ranking because of it.

Use email marketing or social media marketing as a better alternative than spam links.

3. Search Engine Algorithm Update

The existence of search engine algorithm updates is one of the causes of decreased website traffic, which is very natural. Essentially, Google has a strategy to increase value and results by performing algorithm updates on a regular basis.

Not infrequently, many site owners complain about website traffic down due to this algorithm update. To prepare for this, use other marketing strategies, such as social media marketing and email marketing, to expand the reach and avoid relying solely on organic search engine traffic.

4. Changes in the Website

When you decide to redesign your website, the biggest risk you can experience is a decrease in website traffic. Make sure you've done a thorough mapping to account for a drop in traffic before launching the latest version of the website.

Some things that can help you anticipate the risk of website decline due to this redesign include:

• Perform several analyses, which include a site audit, traffic analysis, and URL mapping.
• Make sure all 301 redirects are correctly mapped.
• Check the existing link structure and make sure they all work well on the latest version of your website.

5. Poor Website Page Speed

Page speed is one simple thing that can cause a decrease in your website traffic. Why? Because if you have a website with poor speed, this will affect user comfort.

The slower your website, the higher the bounce rate because no user will want to wait long to see your content. Check your website's page speed using the Page Speed Test regularly to find out how optimal its performance is.

6. Better Competitor Performance

When you feel you are producing original content and getting traffic without cheating but your website traffic is still decreasing, it could be that you have competitors that are performing better than your website.

To anticipate this, you need to analyze your competitors regularly. You can observe how they carry out campaigns, build backlinks, and promote their sites.

7. Server Problems

Server problems are one of the causes of a significant drop in website traffic. The reason is that if you let your website server down for too long, your website will also lose a lot of visitors.

Problems with the server generally occur due to caching malfunctions or empty markup being served to Googlebot. You can search your server logs for errors using Google's Fetch and Render tool to test how your site's URLs are rendered. 

How to Find Out the Causes of Website Traffic Down

After determining the causes of website traffic declines, you must also know how to determine their factors. Here's the explanation for it:

1. Check the Source of Drop in Traffic

The first step to finding out the causes of decreased website traffic is to examine the sources. In this step, you can use Google Analytics tools to find out which sources have significantly decreased traffic. It can be from organic traffic sources, referral traffic, or something else.

Once the source of the traffic has been identified, you can immediately determine which pages are experiencing low traffic.

2. Find Out Which Pages Are Experiencing a Drop in Traffic

The next thing you can do to find out why website traffic is down is to find out which pages are seeing low traffic.

You can do this using Google Analytics tools to analyze which websites have significantly decreased traffic. 

3. Data Analytics in Google Search Console

You can do data analysis on Google Search Console to find out why website traffic is down. Using these tools, you can detect whether your website ranking is moving up or down.

Google Search Console can help you find a comparison of the average search ranking position for each keyword used. In addition, you can also find out the comparison of the number of clicks that are the result of changing your website's position in the SERP.

How to Maintain Your Website's Traffic Ranking and Stability

To anticipate a decrease in website traffic, it is very important for you to maintain the ranking and traffic of your website. Here are some ways to maintain ranking and website traffic that you need to understand:

1. Monitor Competitors Regularly

As the owner of a website that is used for business, you need to analyze the competition regularly. You can find out what strategies are used by your website competitors to keep their website in the top position.

To maximize reach, you can use inorganic solutions for your website. Some things you can do to get inorganic traffic are using social media marketing, email marketing, and installing quality and relevant backlinks on your website.

2. Avoid Using Spam Links

Even though it is considered an easy way to get traffic, sites that are caught using spam links will be penalized by Google. This is because spam links, or toxic backlinks, are links that are only used to promote a site without regard to relevance or user convenience.

If you want your traffic to be stable, don't use spam links as your marketing method. Because this penalty from Google is not kidding at all, your website will experience a significant decrease in traffic or, even worse, be removed from Google's indexing.

3. Use SEO Techniques to Maintain Your Website Traffic

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of the best options for maintaining the stability of your website traffic. This is because SEO techniques always prioritize traffic acquisition in an organic way and do not violate the rules of search engines.

In addition, SEO has long-term marketing properties that can help you grow your business. If you feel you are still new to implementing SEO techniques with minimal resources, you can use SEO services for your website and business needs.

Those are some explanations about the causes of website traffic down, how to find out the causes, and ways to keep your website traffic stable. Even though it sounds simple, declining website traffic can be a problem if it's not solved immediately.