Reasons for change in organic traffic year-over-year
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Need some help in answering the concern of my client.
My client is concerned that organic visits from the 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> quarter of 2016 are LESS than q1 & q2 of 2015. Overall there was about a 15% variance.
Basically, I am trying to explain why the 2015 quarters have more organic traffic than 2016 (over the same time frame)?
I have explained that to the client:
- There are external factors that affect SEO such an increase in competitor presence
- That we have been focusing on generating quality traffic to the site rather than just quantity
- That Google’s new SERPs layout is pushing organic rankings down
Unfortunately, my client does not believe the above points to be valid, despite the fact he is still receiving the same amount of conversions, with less traffic.
Why would his traffic be less in 2016? What else could cause this?
Any help would be appreciated so I can help him.
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Are you filtering spam referrals in your Analytics data? A lot of SEOs noticed that spammy Analytics data declined significantly in the first quarter of 2016. (Unfortunately, the spam data has definitely come back over the last 2-3 months.) If you aren't filtering out spam and the site had a lot it in 2015, that might account for a 15% drop in overall traffic reported.
Your points are valid, but cover your bases to ensure there are no hidden issues. You should perform a technical audit and risk assessment of the site if you haven't done so already. Check for crawl issues, page speed, content duplication, and risky backlinks (to name a few).
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