Frustrated with a Traffic Drop
I don't know what is going on, but my search traffic is down anywhere from 1/3-1/2. It is frustrating me beyond belief!
I started investigating things on my site last week and this weekend to see if there were any sorts of errors anywhere. I did discover my structured data plug in wasn't really working like it should, but I don't think it ever has been so I can't blame that per say (I've been working with the plug in support to get it going, but I still don't know if it is working to show any rich snippets in search. I've requested recrawls of pages but I still don't see any...)
I went back to my most popular posts that seem to have taken a hit lately and updated them. Reread them, took out some fluff, added where necessary. I created YouTube videos for two of the posts. Submitted for a recrawl.
I don't know if it's realistic to expect to see a quick turnaround, but I definitely haven't seen any turnaround yet. :(
Above is a graph of my impressions (teal) & clicks (blue) according to Search Console over the past 3 months. You can see a big dip at the end.
To say I'm frustrated is an understatement!
I know Google released an update at the end of September, but from what I can tell I don't think there is anything about my site that should be all that affected by it.
As far as my overall rankings, they seem to be fairly steady:
I'm confused and frustrated right now. But I'm just going to keep on working and plugging away.
Anyone been in this position before and have some advice for something to look into?
Recent Comments
11
In some of my sites it is much worse. Have a look at my recent question on the same issues and let me know what you have with CTR. How to deal with google's dirty game? If CTR is deceasing, this is likely due to the stuff that Google is adding more and more on the top page. I have featured snippets (zero position posts) that appear below the fold due to paid ads, knowledge boxes, pictures, videos which Google adds as top items. This all affects the traffic tremendously.
But this could also be seasonal at least partly. I see suggestions to switch to Yoast, this will not help.
Thank you, I will take a look! I'm hoping it's just seasonal, but I'm not sure. I have been at this for exactly a year now and obviously at this point last year I had zero traffic, so I'm getting to the point now I can start to watch for trends and see. I don't think my niche is a seasonal niche, but who knows. I do notice when I google some of my top posts, there are so many videos that are displayed instantly, which probably detracts from the traffic I was getting. All the more reason to move more into video! Some of my posts do have videos, but I don't know...something to watch I guess.
Back in July I was around 4%, and now I'm at 3%. A full percentage seems like a significant drop. :/
Hi Hordol, I would strongly suggest using the YOAST plugin for your SEO if you haven't already. Its much better than the one that comes with the website and really helps your focus on keywords, phrases and snippets etc. Hope this helps, Andrew
Thanks Andrew, I'll look into it! I use YOAST on another site I have (it's a very new site so I'm not working much on it yet) and I do really like it. Do you know if there is a way I can easily convert all of the All-in-One SEO plug in data into YOAST, or will I have to manually input everything for every post? Will it affect rankings in the meantime?
hi Hordol, the work you have currently done on seo will be maintained. Please see the following post. . Why Yoast Over All In One SEO?
See more comments
Thank you, everyone-- your insights have been helpful!