In this edition of Ask An SEO, we address a familiar challenge for marketers:
How do you keep stakeholders from abandoning SEO when algorithm updates cause traffic drops?
This is an all-too-common issue that SEOs will encounter. They have strong plans in place, the buy-in from their leadership, and are making great strides in their organic performance.
When disaster strikes – or, more specifically, a Google algorithm update – all of that goodwill and great results are lost overnight.
What’s worse is, rather than doubling down and trying to recoup lost visibility through data-led SEO work, leadership starts questioning if there is a faster way.
Check The Cause Of The Decline In Traffic
First of all, I would say the most critical step to take when you see a drastic traffic drop is to check that it is definitely the result of an algorithm update.
It’s very easy to ascribe the blame to an update, when it could be caused by a myriad of things. The timing might be suspicious, but before anything, you need to rule out other causes.
Is It Definitely The Result Of The Algorithm Update?
This means checking if there have been any development rollouts, SEO fixes set live, or changes in the SERPs themselves recently. Make sure that the traffic loss is genuine, and not a missing Google Analytics 4 tag. Check that you aren’t seeing the same seasonal dip that you saw this time last year.
Essentially, you need to run down every other possible cause before concluding that it is definitely the result of the algorithm update.
This is important. If it’s not the algorithm update, the loss could be reversible.
Identify Exactly What Has Been Impacted
You are unlikely to have seen rankings and traffic decimated across your entire site. Instead, there are probably certain pages, or topics that you have seen a decline in.
Begin your investigation with an in-depth look into which areas of your site have been impacted.
Look at the webpages that were favored in place of yours. Have they got substantially different content? Are they more topically aligned to the searcher’s intent than yours? Or has the entire SERP changed to favor a different type of SERP feature, or content type?
Why Are These Specific Pages Affected?
What is the commonality between the pages on your site that have seen the rankings and traffic drops? Look for similarities in the templates used, or the technical features of the pages. Investigate if they are all suffering from slow-loading or poor-quality content. If you can spot the common thread between the affected pages, it will help you to identify what needs to be done to recover their rankings.
Is The Impact As Disastrous As It First Appears?
Also, ask yourself if the affected pages are actually important to your business. The impulse might be to remedy what’s gone wrong with them to recover their rankings, but is that the best use of your time? Sometimes, we jump to trying to fix the impact of an algorithm update when, actually,…
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