Daily Mail is arguably one of the most popular tabloid newspapers in the world today with great website traffic. It was first published in 1896 and is known for its independent editorial stance and coverage of international news. Today, the paper has garnered an online daily readership of tens of millions and enjoys an average daily circulation of more than one million.
The Daily Mail’s success is, however, not without challenges. As recently as Jan 2019, for instance, Daily Mail was said to have failed to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability, according to Microsoft Edge. In June 2019, the newspaper’s website was blocked in China and is still not accessible. These two tribulations alone have hit their website traffic in a significant way. Luckily, Daily Mail has managed to overturn these complications. And, we can draw three simple lessons on how to recoup lost organic traffic from Google.
Identifying the Drop in Your Website Traffic
Before you even think of restoring your site to glory, the first step is to identify your traffic drop. That is, see when it took place, what pages it has hit, and who is affected. Did it occur more dramatically in a particular location or on a single device? Is it site-wide or just a single page that is fueling the loss in traffic?
The good news is that there are lots of website traffic checker tools to help you with that. Google Analytics, for example, can help you to quickly and effectively pinpoint website traffic drop.
Understanding the Drop
Now that you’ve identified the drop, you need to understand the culprit(s) behind the decline. That’s what helped Daily Mail to regain its basic standards of accuracy and accountability in less than one week.
If, for instance, the drop lasts several days and seems to be recovering on its own, that’s probably not something to worry about. It could be an issue with your web host or some update to a commonly used browser add-on that may be causing script errors. No matter what connectivity issue that was, it was fixed within a few days.
On the other hand, if the dip was sharp, sudden, and doesn’t seem to be recovering, there’s a possibility that you have been hit with a Google Penalty. Checking your Google Webmaster Tools account for a penalty notification will help you confirm that.
If you are still uncertain about what’s causing a site-wide decline in organic traffic, you may have to look at the changes in your audience’s engagement over time. A drop in engagement time may be an adverse effect of recent changes in your site speed or layout.
Other possible causes that affect how you drive your website traffic include new or increased competition or a change in the Google algorithm.
Fix the Website Traffic Issue
Dips in organic traffic are never fun. If not addressed, they can be extremely damaging to your business. Fortunately, Google’s own Search Console can help you fix systemic search traffic issues and improve the search-ability of your website.
If, for example, the CTR drops, but impressions remain constant over a specific period. You need to check and fix the recent changes you made to your title, meta, or structured data.
Other essential tasks the Search Console can help you perform include:
- Index errors
- Crawl errors
- Have Google re-crawl (or just crawl) the entire site or individual pages
- If you have experience violations from Google
- If you have ad violations from Google
- The number of clicks and impressions you get in Google (and on what pages)
Do You Want More Traffic?
If you’re looking to improve or regain your website traffic, the team at Web Content Development is here for you. Reach out to us today to learn more.
