How do I analyze falling traffic

For the past 6 months, my traffic has been falling consistently for several of my sites and one increasing.

1. celebrity blog site, it's fallen from a peak of about 40k slowly to 13k (added about 60 new articles). Site has about 400 articles.
2. clipart site from 90-150k/month to 70k per month. i added about 1000 extra clip art during that time. Site has about 30k clip art images
3. A game cheats site from 27k to 43k per month with no new content. An increase but I didnt do anything! Site has about 100 pages of cheats, one for each level.

Does anyone have some recommendations for resources i could use have a structured process to figure out what's going wrong and to test different hypothesis? Or any immediate-check advice?

 

You're probably aware of Google algorithm updates. Every time they do an update, thousands of webmasters report a drop in traffic. For some it's permanent. You're fighting an uphill battle against the AI that decides what your site ranking should be. Sometimes it decides in your favor.

 

It's important to know where your traffic comes from, and to monitor that. I am assuming you have Google Analytics set up? You don't get to see all your organic sources, but with that and SC, you can get a glimpse. Monitoring your keyword rankings, you can get a bigger picture of what is happening. But even if you figure out what caused the drop, you may not be able to fix it. Still it is good to know all the dynamics involved.

You may have lost a few specific keywords that delivered a lot of traffic. By figuring that out, you can then work to regain those rankings.

 

i strongly recommend first check the target keyword search intent and competitors backlink and on page article. sure it help.

 

Well, it is a common problem to drop in ranking or traffic. There can be various reasons for the same. Here are some of them
1. Google Algorithm Updates
2. Your site violates the guidelines
3. Backlinks to your website either spammy or from low quality.
4. Site structure, UI/UX
5. Targeted Keywords

How to fix this problem
1. Do a deep analysis (do a complete site audit, I prefer you to use the paid tools like Ahref or SEMrush)
2. Fix the errors that you found during the website audit
3. Check the monthly search volume of the keywords you ranking for
4. Find out new keywords that users are searching for
5. Fix broken or toxic links if you found any
6. Do not focus on the quantity instead of quality
7. Disavow all the unnecessary and low-quality links or the links from different niche and foreign language websites.
8. Change the strategy (It can also be the reason)

 

You have to check the on-page of all the posts, I think the reason is that. If you should make the on-page 100% accurate then it would help you a lot.

 

Hi, sorry i didnt quite understand - what do you mean check the on-page ?

 

Cheers - very helpful.. for keywords that people are searching for, do you mean to use the google analytics channels bit? sorry if stupid question very new to this.

 

"for keywords that people are searching for"- It is the little tricky part and for this, you need to do some R&D. Read other blogs similar to your niche and read the comments of other users what they are actually looking for, it will give you an idea for your next topic. Use the Google auto-suggest tool.

 

Check your strategies for on page along with off page also search for target keyword.

 

I think You can go with any online tools.

 

You don't have AW Stats in your CPanel?
That is the best tool available in my opinion.

You can compare data for about 4-5 months back.
compare search keywords you were ranking for back then, and keywords you are ranking for now.
Referring sites are also listed, so you can see if someone new started sending new traffic etc.

And its all free in CPanel.

There are a lot of other hit counter services available too which provide good reporting.
Alternatively, you can even analyse your raw access log files.

 

Google Analytics can be useful for analyzing traffic but an in-depth analysis of the site and its factors can be done through SEMrush or ahrefs. Once you are able to specify a time period you can know the reason for the incident as well.