Why is my organic traffic dropping? Here are 4 things to check

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Why is my organic traffic down

Do you see a negative trend in your Google Analytics account? Wondering why your organic traffic is down?

Is this the time to panic?

Not necessarily.

Before you rush to find a new agency to try and find out what happened, here are 4 ways to diagnose a drop in organic traffic.

First things first: Which pages are losing traffic?

So you see some unfortunate trends on your overall Google Analytics reports. How to know exactly what is being affected?

For that:

There select “Organic Search”

Choose a time range (if the trend is the most recent, the 7 day timeframe will work best)

Check the box that says “Compare” with and keep the “Previous period” option there

Click “Landing Page” and scroll through the results

Google Analytics Traffic Down

Now that you know which pages need your attention, go ahead and run some tests.

1. Check Which Search Queries Have Been Affected

Google's Search Console should be able to help you identify your most impacted search queries:

There, again, select a time frame and choose to compare with the previous period:

Comparing in Google Search Console

Click on the “Pages” tab and click on the page you defined in step #1 above

Go back to the “Query” tab and sort by “Differences”

You only want to pay attention to your top 10 ratings, as nothing else is driving that many clicks, so you can also sort the results by the number of clicks the page generated in the previous period.

This task will be much easier if you are tracking your most important search queries. In that case, you'll be just one click away from tracked #1 positions. Website Checker do a great job of saving your time here:

Sitechecker

2. Check SERPs . Changes

The good news is you're not alone. There are at least 9 other pages ranking for that query as well as many other search features that can start stealing your clicks. So the next steps are:

Search for the specified query on Google. Is there a new search element you haven't seen before? Examples of search elements that steal clicks include featured snippets, image and video carousels, etc. Don't forget to search on both mobile and desktop.

Check out recent SERP movements. Again, a solid ranking monitoring solution should come with comprehensive SERP monitoring. Here is a equipped Website Testing Tool:

SpyFu also comes with that feature, so if you don't track your keywords check if SpyFu has a profile for it:

Spyfu Movements

If you notice a page of competition that is confidently going up, check it out. Are there link building tactics or content that might be on the move?

3. Check if anyone else is experiencing anything similar

Are you alone when you see some unusual organic traffic fluctuations? Some quick resources to check out here are:

Search Engine Roundtable : Barry does a great job tracking all the active discussions on the SEO forums and on Twitter. If anything is going on, you'll be sure to see him reporting here within a few hours.

Barry's Twitter account @ rust is another source to watch as he sometimes shares stuff on Twitter without but still on his blog.

Knowing that there's an update will help you understand if it's anything that needs fixing right away. If there's a global update going on, you'll need to give it some time. Things take time to settle down and there is never an emergency.

4. Test your content

First things first: Is the information outdated? ? In many cases, this is the first thing to consider.

It can be extended are not? As Google moves to find better answers to more specific questions, you should edit your content to include more relevant angles, questions, and concepts.

More importantly, does the page perform well in response to searcher intent?

Keyword intent optimization will drive both organic rankings and conversions, so it's imperative to check for content that is losing rankings. Commercial intent (or purchase) is something you need to pay attention to. Lior Krolewicz's Yael Consulting explain purchase intention as :

a measurement of the likelihood that a given individual will purchase a particular good or service at some point in the future.

Optimizing for what your potential website users intend to do on that page is very important.

To help you expand your copy and optimize for search, use Text Optimizer . The tool uses semantic analysis to help you discover related concepts and entities covered in your content so it does a better job of resolving the target query:

Textoptimizer score

To get started, run your existing content through the Text Optimizer and see your current score. Aim to get a score of 60 and higher for better results.

Also, make sure your grammar is perfect all the time. There are a lot of tools can help see your error illogical constants and smooth your speech.

Conclude

Fluctuations in organic traffic are normal and should always be predictable, so really the most important tip here is “Calm down.” Once you notice something going on, give it a few days and then look at that. Checking for traffic drops can be done at home, so save yourself time and money and take a look at that using the steps above.