Improved keyword ranking but less traffic
-
Hello fellow mozzers!
My collegue and I are a bit puzzled in regards to our recent website statistics. In november 2013, we upgraded the technological platform of our website to be fully HTML5 coded, and implemented the schema.org Products scheme to systematically tag all our products on the site. To prevent too much loss of visitors, we created a 301-redirect table from almost all our old URL's to the specific new ones, as we implemented a new URL structure as well.
The first few months were bumpy as expected, making a huge drop in rankings before rising up again. Our keyword rankings are better then ever (60% of the keywords in top 3, average competition, 25% more on first SERP) but our number of visits dropped by about 10%. Our bounce rate went down from 20% to 14%, our returning visits are stable, but our new visitors stats dropped by 25% as well. This comparison was made between equal periods in the current year and last year, using organic data stats. (new technical platform vs. the old one)
What could be the reason that our number of visits dropped 10% while our keyword ranking is better then ever? We don't have any manual penalties in GWT and can't understand why visits would drop so much while ranking improved. May it be so easy that there's just less search volume on our ranked content or does anyone have other ideas?
Thank you all in advance!
-
I think that the bigger question you should be asking is.. "is our site making us more money now or not". With out a open door to your data I would guess that even though your rankings raised for your targeted keywords, you might have dropped in ranking for some less relevant keywords (Hints why your bounce rate improved). Has your conversion rate gone up? A lose in traffic is not always a bad thing, if you are losing irrelevant traffic. I would say that if your quality indicators have improved than I wouldn't be to concerned about the lose in traffic. I would just start focusing on how to move forward with identifying the next set of relevant keywords that you want to rank for. Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can Segment capture organic traffic? If so is it more reliable than Google Analytics?
Hi mozzers, We just learned that our standard GA hasn't been as reliable as we hoped so and we are trying to find other ways to track organic sessions. Which solution would you consider? Is Segment one of them? If so, is it more reliable than Google Analytics? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Ty19861 -
Domain Authority and Links drastically decreased in less than a month
I'm fairly new to SEO, and am left completely perplexed about why our two SEO client's links and DA decreased so drastically in so little time. Looking at their stats on Moz, between May and June, their DA's went down by 3-5 (which, they were fairly low to begin with), and external links were halved! This is rather concerning to me as building their external links has been my focus for the past few months for both of them. There are a number of tweaks that I could make to site structure in terms of meta descriptions and page title length (though I can't fix that as the clients want to keep the titles as is), however there are no critical errors. I have also placed a lot of filters on both of their Google Analytics pages as they were getting what I just now realized was a ton of spam, though I don't see how that would affect anything. I just can't imagine what lead to all of those external link suddenly dropping. I imagine the drastic drop in those lead to the DA decrease, but again, I'm very new, so I'm not certain. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I have been panicking quite a bit since I've seen this!
Reporting & Analytics | | everestagency0 -
What's the best way to figure out which keywords are the highest converting?
We have a client using Google Analytics. They currently have 3 goals set up to track when website visitors fill out 3 forms: Form A, Form B, Form C. I can easily figure out what traffic sources have driven the highest number of conversions on each form (Search for Form A, for instance, or Referrals for Form B), but of course, when I try to drill down on search terms that have driven conversions to each form, I get stuck in "not provided" territory. I'd like to know what people are searching for when they ultimately fill out each form. This will answer questions like: are people familiar with us already when they convert, or did they randomly find our website when searching for something we sell? It seems like there must be a way, using Google Webmaster Tools, Analytics, or another third-party app, to answer the question: what keyword searches are responsible for the highest number of conversions? Especially on a website that has traffic of 10,000+/month and a healthy dose of search traffic. Right? Where am I missing this information?
Reporting & Analytics | | timfrick1 -
Universal Analytics - is it awarding traffic incorrectly ?
A few days ago deployed a new site. A funny thing happened within one day. Google Analytics commenced reporting Organic traffic as lifting by 25%. At the same time Google Analytics commenced reporting that direct traffic dropped by 25%. All other traffic sources remained at the same level. This is all being reported through GA Universal. Has anyone experienced this before? Any advice is appreciated. Also noted that with Google Webmaster is reporting, since the day of the new site deployment, a 40% drop in impressions and click. Reported referrals on this deployment day also went through the roof. All of the Google tools I am depending on are not supporting my discovery of a solution to this. If anyone has been through this on universal analytics or traditional analytics please help! Offering lots of good karma points in return. Cheers.
Reporting & Analytics | | Oxfordcomma0 -
Best way to measure local search keyword rank
I have several clients that have a regional or local presence and want to track their rankings for various keywords, but only in the areas they are located in. What are the best ways to track keyword rank in specific locations or regions of the US?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheURLdr0 -
Google Direct Traffic Reporting for Mobile on Analytics
We noticed a significant drop in our direct traffic in Google Analytics for mobile on July 30th but all our other traffic remains the same. What is the possible cause of this?
Reporting & Analytics | | COEDMediaGroup0 -
Are Click-Through rates & Bounce Rates as Ranking Metrics ?
There are lots of articles around but I would prefer to see what everyone here has to say about it. Are they ranking metrics ( directly or In-directly )? If they are then how to get it right? Can i depend on Google In-page analytic? What is an acceptable Bounce rate for a home page ? What is an average click through rate for your landing page ? thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | conversiontactics0 -
Search Traffic Drops Before It Improves?
I'm working on a site with tons of great, useful content....the owners of the site implemented a new site layout and design (complete overhaul) and they were lacking basics such as meta descriptions, 301 redirects, and, shockingly, they had the same Title tag for every single page on a site with thousands of unique how-to articles. Unsurprisingly their traffic dropped by about 300%. They generate most of their traffic from people learning how to build stairs, how to install crown molding, and other related matters. Beginning last Thursday I've been performing basic on-site SEO, things like having unique titles for each page and similar tasks. The week from Thursday when I began until yesterday (Wednesday), Google traffic dropped -29.73% - 17,715 vs 25,210 I believe this is a normal part of the "Google Shuffle" -- does anyone have a Matt Cutts link or similar proof that this is a normal part of the process?
Reporting & Analytics | | wattssw0