If you’re a diligent steward of your company’s website, you likely monitor site traffic using Google Analytics fairly regularly. Have you noticed a recent dip? Is traffic not booming the way it was when your site first launched? Any number of different things could be creating a lull in your website traffic, and, fortunately, many of them are easily fixable. Here are a few of the key things that might be happening if your website is driving away traffic.
Your content is out-of-date, or too sparse.
When your site rolled out, it most surely wasn’t devoid of content – you had something to show prospects that demonstrated who you are and what your brand is all about. But that content won’t work forever to keep pulling people in – content needs to evolve and be kept up-to-date to reflect changes in the marketplace, in trends, in consumer habits… your site needs to stay on top of it all. Regularly updating and adding content will keep the site fresh and relevant and will improve your search engine rankings (especially if content added keeps SEO in mind – more on that later). Do yourself a favor: set up a “content calendar” to help remind yourself of when to add new pages, new blog posts, or even just a few lines with internal links to your products.
Shoot for adding new content on a bi-monthly basis if not more often – this will keep the site fresh without making you feel overwhelmed with continuous updates. If you need help with content creation and posting, the digital marketing specialists at Gauge Digital Media are here to help.
Your site didn’t change… but Google’s algorithms did.
You likely conducted extensive SEO keyword research before launching your website and any associated digital marketing, and rightly so. SEO is critical – especially in crowded markets – to ensure that your site rises through the ranks and gets the traffic it deserves. But if your content hasn’t changed in a while, that likely means your SEO hasn’t either, and that could be a problem. Search engines like Google are changing their algorithms on an almost weekly basis; what worked to drive you through the ranks last week might be what everyone else is doing this week, and so the algorithm needs to be re-worked so that true outliers can rise to the top of the pile. So keep up with SEO keyword research (even if you’ve done it many times before), and adapt your content accordingly as keywords change.
Links worked yesterday, but not today.
Both internal and external links are essential components of a website that work in your favor to drive SEO and boost site traffic; you want to have them and use them appropriately – and often. But links can fall out-of-date too, and having a broken link can hurt you as much as a functional link would help you. So check your links often: be sure that external links still reference the sites and pages that you want them to, and absolutely be certain that your internal links are all working effectively (that sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not: if you’ve made changes to your site regularly – as you should – broken internal links can easily occur without your noticing).
You’ve tried everything… and might just need a little help.
If your content is up-to-date, you’ve conducted SEO keyword research, your links all route appropriately, and Google Analytics is still reflecting slow website traffic, there might be a deeper issue at play that you’re simply not seeing. It could be time to call in some help. At Gauge Digital Media, we understand how an effective website ticks, and what can prevent one from reaching its audiences. We’ll work with you to understand what’s happening and can cultivate a strategy that works with your team, budget, and vision, and will get traffic moving again! So give us a call at (410) 376-7709 to find out why your website is driving away traffic, and how to fix it.
