Effective search engine optimization (SEO) can be difficult to keep up with. Keywords consumers are using to search change frequently for a number of reasons. These can include surges of new products, differentiating customer needs, and new ways to search (ex. voice-​activated assistants). However, sometimes, no matter how up to date you keep your keywords, your site traffic may suddenly drop for an unknown reason. When that happens, here’s Search Engine Land’s advice for what to check in order to find a solution.

Site Changes

The redesign of your client's website, or even just tweaks to it, can result in changes to the effectiveness of SEO. If changes to a site happen and its traffic drops afterward, be on the lookout for broken URLs. According to Search Engine Land, “The most commonly overlooked issues would concern indexation and crawlability.” Index is defined by Search Metrics as, “a database used by a search engine containing the information on all the websites that search engine can find,” and Yoast defines crawlability as, “the possibilities a search engine has to index a website.” These can be fixed in the company’s Google Search Console.

Deleted Backlinks

The number of backlinks, or links to external websites (as defined by Moz), a website has can affect its visibility. The more outside sites your client's website is linked to, the more visible it is. So, if that website’s traffic suddenly decreases, check on these links that may have been lost and repair them if need be.

Competitors’ SEO

Your client isn’t the only one regularly updating their SEO. Their competitors are always right on their heels. If your client’s website traffic decreases, check their website’s location on search engine results pages. Search Engine Land recommends asking yourself these questions if your client’s rank has dropped, “Are the pages mobile-​optimized as opposed to yours? Was the content significantly renewed? Were new backlinks gained? Did the schema markup make the result stand out and entice your clicks?” Check on the answers to these questions and any others you can think of. There are always aspects of SEO that can be improved.