WebzstoreMy Website Traffic Is Going Down
My Website Traffic Is Going Down
If your website traffic is going down, establish which visits have fallen, when the change began and whether useful enquiries or sales changed with them. A fall in traffic is a reason to investigate, not a diagnosis on its own.
Step 1Comparison
Make sure the comparison is meaningful
Check the date range, source and measurement setup. A reporting change, a different comparison period or a channel being grouped differently can make the numbers look unlike the business experience.
Keep search clicks, analytics visits and recorded conversions distinct. They are related observations, not interchangeable counts.
Step 2Narrowing
Narrow the change
- One channel falls
- A useful next check
- That channel's data and recent changes
- A group of pages falls
- A useful next check
- Shared templates, content or URL changes
- Most pages fall together
- A useful next check
- Measurement and site-wide conditions
- Visits fall but enquiries do not
- A useful next check
- Whether the lost visits were relevant
- Enquiries fall more than visits
- A useful next check
- The landing and contact journey
These are investigation directions. A pattern suggests where to look; it does not prove the cause.
Step 3Changes
Record what changed around the same time
A redesign, migration, navigation change, removed page or tracking update can be relevant. So can changes outside your site. Keep a dated list and compare it with the affected pages rather than treating the nearest event as automatically responsible.
Avoid making many unrelated fixes at once before the problem is understood. It makes the evidence harder to interpret and may disturb pages that were working.
Step 4Help
Decide what kind of help fits
An SEO audit is appropriate when the issue concerns organic search and the site needs investigation. Ongoing SEO work follows the findings and priorities. If the traffic is still relevant but the enquiry rate changed, the conversion guide is the closer next step.
This guide helps organise the question. It does not replace the account and website evidence needed for a diagnosis.
Step 5Change Log
Build a dated change log
- Metric and source
- What to record
- The measure that fell and the system reporting it
- Start and comparison periods
- What to record
- When the change began and the comparable periods you will inspect
- Affected pages or audience
- What to record
- Pages, channel, country or device showing the change
- Concurrent changes
- What to record
- Dated edits, launches, tracking changes or other known events
- Observation
- What to record
- What the records actually show, with a link to the evidence
- Possible explanation
- What to record
- A hypothesis kept separate from the observed facts
- Test
- What to record
- What would support or weaken that explanation, and how you will check it
- Responsibility and next action
- What to record
- Who will perform the check and when the finding will be reviewed
Keep observations separate from suspected causes. A change on the same date is a lead to investigate, not proof of what caused the decline.
Questions about falling traffic
Does a traffic drop mean Google penalised us?
No. A traffic change alone does not establish that explanation. The relevant account information and affected pages need review.
Should we delete pages that lost visits?
Not on that observation alone. Their purpose, quality, current condition and role in the site need to be assessed first.
Can you promise to recover the previous numbers?
No. We can investigate and recommend work, but a previous traffic level is not a guaranteed future outcome.
Bring a timeline, not a guess
Share the approximate start of the change, the affected channel and any website changes you know about. That gives the investigation a useful beginning.
Explore the next step
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