My traffic plateaued - now what?
I’ve been thinking a lot about my website journey lately and how I’m so proud of how far I’ve come with not just my keyword research, but also my mindset around the expectations of what I interpret as growth and what isn’t.
In this episode, I share some behind the scenes of my website traffic, how to analyze plateaued traffic, and some mindset hacks to get past this.
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There is a very gradual growth there but am I totally in love with it? No. Are there things I could be doing better/more of? Probably.
Have I stopped blogging and producing great content that helps my audience? No.
Have I had moments of wondering if I’m doing “enough” with my website and marketing? Yes! But I’ve gotten better at not staying in that belief too long.
You all know I’m a big advocator of mindset and I feel that whenever I get this weird feeling of “this isn’t enough” it usually isn’t a real reflection of what is happening in my business and marketing.
I’m excited because over the next few months, I’ll be sharing some behind the scenes look at what my traffic and client’s traffic looks like when you have awareness around your Search Marketing.
Not just shiny success stories (although many of them have had incredible results). There are always learnings and insights for you to take away from and apply to your traffic.
It’s a bit scary sharing this type of email because I want you to not get discouraged by plateaus, drops, and weird stuff happening with your website traffic. I believe that the growth of your business and however you define success is more than possible for you. But it is normal for these things to happen and that is why I’m being transparent with you about it.
In the meantime, if you are looking for a clear process for how to analyze your own website traffic in a way that is not overwhelming and something you can even look forward to (yes, it’s possible), then I highly recommend you check out the Homegrown Traffic SEO course.
This is where I teach my own process for analyzing traffic for business owners who don’t want to become SEO expert, but understand just enough to make the right decisions in their business and grow their traffic.
How to analyze plateaued website traffic
Here are some ways I’ve taken a deeper look at my search data and pulled some insights, as well as infused my goals this year.
Understand which pages are performing well vs. which ones have lost rankings
This is something you can easily do with the Search Console (no fancy tools required) by filtering on a keyword by keyword basis and using the “compare” option in the Date range.
Once you hit the compare, you’ll be able to see the position per keyword (aka where your website is ranking in the search results) and what the changes have been.
It’s great to both see which keywords you’ve lost ranking in (for example, keywords that have gone from page 1 to page 2) as well as keywords that have gained rankings (keywords that have gone from page 4 to page 2).
And on that note…the next action step is …
Focus on high opportunity keywords
Instead of trying to rank in all the keywords, you can just focus on the ones that are on page 2 of Google. These are what I call high opportunity keywords since there can be a massive traffic growth just by getting them to page one.
Again, using the Search Console, you can filter your keywords on position, filtering page 2 keywords, which will be approximately positioned 11 - 21.
Once you filter these keywords, you’ll be able to see which ones you are interested in and what you can do to improve these pages to help them along to page 1.
Find new keywords
Last but not least finding new keywords that are bringing in a nice amount of traffic can be really powerful. Just having a spreadsheet like this one below can help you keep track of new keyword opportunities, along with the metrics that ensure they’ll serve you in bringing in fresh traffic.
Looking for a clear process for growing your website traffic? Check out the Homegrown Traffic SEO Course where you learn the 4-step SEO process to growing your website traffic without getting overwhelmed.
The big picture of this plateaued website traffic
I want to normalize this situation of plateaued traffic for you so that you don’t get demotivated because I want you to keep going when it comes to writing for and updating your website.
The point is you can continue to bring in new leads and sales with Search Marketing by holding the ground on your “star player” keywords that are on page 1 and are relevant to your services and offers.
In fact, in the last 3-months 60% of the visitors to my site that have come from organic search traffic have landed on blog posts and service pages that I created over a year ago and continue to improve to this day. None of the below landing pages are linked to new keywords.
And all the opt-in downloads I’ve had from my Keyword for Health and Wellness post have all come from Google (checked my email provider for this data).
I love seeing how, over time, the SEO efforts on my website get stronger and stronger without having to create massive new pieces of content. I still will create indepth guides once in awhile, but it’s strategically aligned to keywords I know will rank and get me leads.
In the meantime, the traffic and visitors continue to grow more and more over time:
I know that running your business can already feel hard. And on top of that, you have the extremely overwhelming task of not just creating a website, but deciding which blog posts to write from scratch, which old blog posts to improve, and what to ignore.
That’s one of the reasons I created the Homegrown Traffic SEO course; to give you a straight forward, 4-part methodology that cuts through all the confusing information and gives you the exact steps to understanding your keywords, creating SEO friendly content, tracking/learning from your progress, and getting ranked in Google.
Full course details here: https://courses.digitalbloomiq.com/homegrown-traffic-seo-course
If you are especially tired of spending 2 hours a day on social media to get minimal traffic to your site, check the course out because it will give you a strategic process to attracting leads who are already looking for what you have to offer and growing your business.
Share in the comments what your own experience with plateaued website traffic is.
In this conversation, Cinthia Pacheco and Jen Vasquez discuss various aspects of SEO, focusing on site migration, canonical issues, content management, and keyword optimization.