5 Ways to Fix a Drop in Organic Web Traffic

Benefits of Organic Web Traffic

As the leading source of online traffic, the advantages of organic web traffic are immense. Here are some of them:

• Requires no prior advertising: Unlike other types of web traffic, organic traffic relies on SEO rankings rather than advertising. Consequently, it can attract visitors who may have never heard of your website. 
• It attracts more users than any other method of online traffic: Organic web traffic accounts for a significant percentage of your website’s overall volume of visitors.
• It has wider coverage: While other web traffic sources like social media and paid ads target a particular demographic or location, organic web traffic has worldwide coverage. As long as users search for queries that are relevant to your website, they can access it from anywhere in the world.
• It improves your website credibility: It is playfully said that the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of search engine results. This is because most web users restrict their searches to the first page. Favorable rankings on search engine result pages birth healthy organic web traffic. When your website is one of the first to appear in a search, it increases organic web traffic. This conveys credibility to users and may even help edge out competitors  by minimizing their online presence by moving them lower on search engine results pages. 

How to Fix a Drop in Organic Web Traffic

If your website is losing traffic, you should consider paying more attention to your organic sources. A significant drop in organic traffic will undoubtedly affect your overall visibility. Here are five ways to improve your website’s organic traffic with long-term results:

1. Monitor Website Traffic

To improve a drop in website traffic, begin by knowing how to spot the problem. Tracking your website metrics is the best way to do this because it keeps you updated on factors that could affect your web traffic. Based on your website’s demands, you can run checks monthly, weekly, or daily. 

There are free tools for checking website traffic like Google Analytics and Ahrefs that can help you track website metrics. They provide comprehensive information about your website and are crucial for understanding website performance. Likewise, there are paid tools that offer similar services for a fee. The difference is that paid tools like SEMrush Pro offer more functionality. Most experts recommend using at least two website checkers, and you may consider using both free and paid tools for more comprehensive results. 

With a better understanding of your site’s performance, you may then proceed with the necessary steps to improve your website’s rankings and ultimately, your organic web traffic. Note that sudden surges or drops occur in visitor metrics. However, these occasional extremes may not reflect your website’s actual performance. Your actions should therefore be informed by data collated over time. 

2. Research Target Audience

The point of investing in web development is to attract web traffic. The target audience is the principal concern of any website. They are the visitors you hope to attract and your final consumers. Consequently, it is important to understand how best to get their attention. For instance, if your target market is looking for apples, it would be counterproductive to stock up on grapes.  

Essentially, you should know your target audience and its specific needs and then tailor your website to meet those requirements. This also includes understanding your audience’s online behavior like how it structures web queries and other related patterns. Audience research helps you personalize your website to your potential visitors. When your web content is audience-centered, it sets you apart from the multitude and establishes your brand as precisely what users need. 

Create profiles for your target readers, have a strong idea of their personas, and know their search intent. Is it navigational, informational, commercial, or transactional? This is how you can successfully align your services with your target audience. Additionally, identify and leverage the variables in their web queries. Know the different possible ways your audience could search the web and structure your website to meet these variations. 

3. Improve SEO Practices

Search engine optimization (SEO) covers a wide range of practices aimed at driving organic traffic to your website. Visitors are introduced to your website through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing when your SEO ranking is high. SEO is key to making sure that your website appears on the first page when users conduct relevant online searches. Consequently, you need to focus on SEO to ensure that your website is visible to and ranked by search engines.

Here are some areas of interest to improve your website’s SEO ranking:

• Content research: Once you’ve identified your audience, determine what type of content it will find relevant. Research relevant topics and create quality content around them. While other parts of your website like the design and interface are important, know that no serious user will choose aesthetics over content. Subpar content is one of the easiest ways to discourage traffic. Users feel disrespected when offered shoddy content and it reduces your website’s value.
• Optimized keywords: Keywords refer to those vital words that align your audience’s interests with your content. When a potential visitor searches for something on a platform like Google and if your website contains relevant information to the search, Google suggests your site to them. The “relevant information” are called keywords. However, you can’t just fill your site with random content without a sense of relevance to your target audience. Keyword optimization is streamlining your web content to fit relevant search engine queries. Your website is then ranked based on this relevance. Additionally, keywords can also be phrases, which are known as long-tail keywords. These key phrases increase the chances of web traffic because they’re usually more specific than keywords.
• Blogging: If your website has a blog where you post informational content regularly, it improves your chances of getting more organic web traffic. This also creates another avenue for spiking organic web traffic in the form of internal links. These redirect users to other pages within your website.
  
• Use an FAQs section: Apart from keyword optimization, another effective way for your website to appear on page one of search engine result pages is to include an FAQs section on your website. This doubles your chances of visibility because, in addition to traffic from your primary content, you will also cater to the possible questions visitors might have.
• Revised Outdated Content: Outdated content refers to content that has lost its relevance. In the world of SEO, that is dangerous to your site’s performance. Chances are, search engines could send your site to the dreaded page two of search results or even farther away from your potential visitors. Take inventory of your content occasionally and let go of some while you give others a facelift. If you have great content that could still be relevant with some minor touches, revise it and bring it up to date. 

4. Consider Web Redesign 

If, after analyzing your website, you discover old content is not the only thing that needs a facelift, then consider redesigning the entire website for better web traffic. If you are not satisfied with your web traffic or your online presence in general, then a complete or partial website overhaul might be the solution. 

In addition to improving a website’s credibility, outstanding web design also augments the user experience. Statistics reveal that over 75% of digital agencies agree that poor user experience negatively affects their clients’ websites. Additionally, about 35% of users admit to leaving websites with poor design and navigation. Improving your web design could increase its appeal and make it easier to navigate. This is an effective method of attracting and retaining visitors.

In addition to amplifying the overall user experience, interesting web design makes going through content more enjoyable. Great design and quality content work hand-in-hand to inform your visitors about your website. The result would positively impact your organic web traffic. A refurbished website lets you reach out to your target users most attractively and conveniently. Additionally, consider redesigning your website in a way that will appeal to visitors. For example, if you run a website for children, it needs to be kid-friendly.

5. Monitor the Competition 

Staying ahead of the competition requires diversifying your options, and sometimes, it involves monitoring the competition. With digital marketing becoming increasingly cutthroat, it helps to know how your contemporaries are getting ahead. This will help you modify your strategies accordingly. You can emulate some of their methods to benefit your website and eventually beat them at their own game.

Web tools like Sprout Social and Brand24 enable you to track the performances of competing websites. They help with your search engine optimization and content strategy, factors that are key to boosting organic web traffic. If your analysis proves that your competitors are making significant progress, consider investigating their models of operation. Here are some of the criteria to consider when choosing a tracking tool: 

• Free or affordable: It pays to use a tracking tool that won’t become a financial burden. Consider getting a free or affordable one with great value. 

• In-depth analysis: Being affordable doesn’t mean it must be low-quality. For the best results, you need a tracking tool that offers thorough surveys of competing websites. This includes traffic data, keywords, and content, to name a few.

• Easy to use: The tool should be easy to understand and navigate.

The goal is not to merely copy your competition’s every move, but rather to monitor how the market reacts to their practices. By knowing their strengths, particularly in areas where your website struggles, you could fix the drop in your website’s organic web traffic. Additionally, tracking tools can expose weaknesses in competing websites, giving you more opportunities to leverage. 

Conclusion

Attracting the right people is the goal of every website. The volume of traffic your website generates is crucial to its success. However, websites often fail to get the desired number of visitors and this is mostly due to a neglect of organic web sources. Being the most rewarding source of online visitors, underutilizing organic web traffic reduces website profitability. 

Fortunately, there are steps available to fix this. Implementing the suggested methods will undoubtedly help steer your website toward significant improvements in organic web traffic. If you’re not sure how to move forward, seeking assistance from a digital marketing agency that specializes in this realm might work well for you.