As the landscape for search engine optimization (more commonly referred to as SEO) continues to change, it’s possible to see organic traffic come and go. A fluctuation or decrease in performance can lead you to ask, “Why has my organic search dropped?”
“Many business owners might not realize that a small mistake can have big consequences,” said Elevation Ten Thousand Senior SEO Strategist, Shea Lynch.
The answer may not be as simple as one might hope. And without the help of a technically trained SEO experts, website developers, or content writers, increasing organic rankings is likely to be a daunting task to undertake on your own.
1. Changing the Domain Name & Not Telling Google
Google knows everything and has all the answers, right? Sort of. But for the search engine to answer questions, it needs to know that there is a question and subsequent answer.
If you’d like the website to have a shot at maintaining its organic search traffic after updating the domain name, it’s vital to take advantage of the Change of Address Tool from Google. Google has outlined how to effectively use the tool and when not to use it — situations like switching from http to https, for example.
Using the Change of Address Tool notifies Google of the URLs for the existing content so that it can be indexed. Completely this process will help to keep the organic keyword rankings stable, whereas ignoring the process will surely be a reason why your organic search has dropped.
2. Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is essential for any business owner as it is a means for people to find the business on Google Maps and in a search query. It allows business owners or digital marketers to update important information about the business, like hours of operation, website address, or street address.
But, like other aspects of Google, there are rules to follow.
“Recently, one of our clients saw significant decreases in their first-page organic ranking due to changing the business name to something that went against the Google Business Profile listing terms of service. The business immediately dropped out of the local map pack for a couple weeks,” Lynch continued.
3. Technical Website Issues
Depending on the issue in question, a technical website issue could lead to a poor user experience and therefore a higher bounce rate.
But more than likely, a technical website issue could prevent Google from crawling and indexing the website.
Website indexing is the process of search engines, like Google, adding the web content to its index. To do so, the search engine will “crawl” the individual pages searching for keywords, metadata, and other related information that will determine its ranking.
To help prevent these technical issues from occurring and to help stabilize — or increase organic rankings, a properly designed website should be easy to navigate, find, and filled with easy-to-understand, relevant content.
4. Outdated & Irrelevant Content
Call me biased, but I believe content is king. And if a website has stopped attracting users or has seen a decrease in organic rankings, the quality or relevance of the content could be the source.
But there’s more to it than explaining a service or product. Is the title tag, meta description, and header tags found on the page optimized to fit the SEO strategy? Are these items still catchy enough to grab the audience’s attention?
If the content is lacking, then it’s time to formulate a strategy that incorporates updates to provide information about the business that the audience may also find interesting.
It may also be worthwhile to implement schema markup code as a way to help put the website in front of the ideal audience based on their search queries.
5. The Competition
One of the reasons why your rankings have dropped could actually be caused by the business’ competition — whether it’s a new competitor or not.
Take a moment to monitor and evaluate what the competition is doing, not just in terms of their product or service but the overall activity.
Has the brand changed or improved its strategy? Has the competition recently launched a new-and-improved website? If the answer is yes, it’s possible that what they have done is a success, thus taking rankings from your brand.
Sometimes it takes an in-depth look from an outside perspective to see what can be improved, or where to even start.
