Why Is My Website Losing Organic Traffic w/ Cesar Cobo
Cesar Cobo is the Director of Operations at WEBRIS agency, and he shares his framework for diagnosing and addressing organic traffic loss for clients.
Common Causes of Traffic Loss
- Duplicate content (cannibalization) — multiple pages competing for the same keyword
- Major content changes — changed page titles, redesigns, or changes in website architecture
- Technical issues — errors that can cause sudden traffic drops
- Syndicating content — distributing content across multiple sites can cause confusion for search engines
Diagnostic Framework
When traffic is decreasing, the first thing is determining whether or not it's related to anything technical. If you're not seeing a correlation between keyword rankings and traffic patterns, then it's probably something to do with the tracking code.
Using Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the best starting point for finding cannibalization issues. Log in to your property and if you see multiple URLs generating impressions for the same query, that's a red flag.
Use Google Search Console to find which page has lost a lot of traffic, and run a crawl of the site to look for any technical errors that could explain sudden traffic drops.
Historical Analysis
Pull keyword ranking data from SEMrush and compare period over period to understand what is happening with a website. When looking at analytics, go back at least three to five years to spot common trends that can explain if they're in the middle of a traffic downturn.
The key is a data-driven approach and clear communication when addressing traffic loss with clients.