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Why did my site take such a dump?

by Electrical
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Here's the story:

About 8 months ago I made a website for my contracting company. Nothing flashy, I just did some on-page SEO type of stuff. I made a bunch of pages specifically aimed towards local cities that I work in as well as some pages aimed towards tasks that I do. A total of 21 pages. These are static pages, no blogs or anything that changes.

Within a couple months I was getting about 200 visits per month according to Google Analytics, about 150 of those were from my own state and in the cities that I was aiming for.

Then after many months of it maintaining that same amount of visits, it just started to drop off. Within 2 months it went from 200 visits per month in the US to 25. From 150 visits in my state to 15. And now it's hovering right around there.

Here's the odd thing, I still come up in the same high rankings as I did months ago when I was getting 10 times more traffic. When searching all of my keywords I seem to come up in the same place as always, sometimes higher than before.

My market doesn't seem to have much active competition, if you look at most of the other contractors in my area they have really old websites that they never touch and these are the types of guys who still pay for phone book ads instead of caring about the internet.

SO what made my visits drop off so much? Why was I able to get so many visits early on but not anymore?
#dump #site
  • Profile picture of the author Lori Kelly
    What were the keywords people were typing in to find you?

    How long did they stay on your site?

    What pages were they reading?

    Were they unique visitors, return visitors...?

    Did you get any new business from these visitors?

    Some of those clicks could be from competitors. They could be from people who were looking for something else, etc. There's dozens of reasons why your traffic has declined.

    It drives me crazy sometimes when I try to find an answer to those questions.

    I hand it to you for knowing the power of the internet.

    Most people here in my rural area advertise in the phone book. And then they buy a one page site that costs a fortune. And they wonder why they're not getting any new business.

    There's nothing wrong with having static pages, but there's nothing wrong with having a blog either.

    If I were you, I'd create a blog and start posting.

    There are tons of DIY'ers these days and I'd write informational posts about "How to ..." targeted to the DIY homeowner. I'd make sure that the task was one they could do on their own, but include some information about why it is important to use a licensed electrician when it comes to ... (whatever jobs in your area that code requires a licensed electrician is used).

    If your visits were return visitors, they have nothing new to read.

    Give them something new to read.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Thank you for your reply, I am going to try my best to answer your questions but please remember that I am pretty new to this so I only know the basics.

      Originally Posted by Lori Kelly View Post

      What were the keywords people were typing in to find you? Things like mytown generator installation, electrician mytown, electric repair mytown, etc.

      How long did they stay on your site? I'm not sure

      What pages were they reading? I couldn't figure out how to tell that from Google Analytics. I only figured out the demographics by area part of it and used the map to see how many visits I got from where.

      Were they unique visitors, return visitors...? Not sure, I assume mostly unique.

      Did you get any new business from these visitors? Yes, at the time I was getting about 5 calls per week (which I was very happy with and I closed many of those calls). Right now I am down to less than 1 call per week.

      Some of those clicks could be from competitors. They could be from people who were looking for something else, etc. There's dozens of reasons why your traffic has declined. The fact that I was getting more calls back then made me believe that it was not just spammers and other competition visiting my site.

      It drives me crazy sometimes when I try to find an answer to those questions.

      I hand it to you for knowing the power of the internet.

      Most people here in my rural area advertise in the phone book. And then they buy a one page site that costs a fortune. And they wonder why they're not getting any new business.

      There's nothing wrong with having static pages, but there's nothing wrong with having a blog either.

      If I were you, I'd create a blog and start posting.

      There are tons of DIY'ers these days and I'd write informational posts about "How to ..." targeted to the DIY homeowner. I'd make sure that the task was one they could do on their own, but include some information about why it is important to use a licensed electrician when it comes to ... (whatever jobs in your area that code requires a licensed electrician is used).

      If your visits were return visitors, they have nothing new to read.

      Give them something new to read.
      Blogging is definitely something that I want to do, the same goes for social media. I know that they can help tremendously.

      My concern is that I was doing so well (IMO) without that stuff, and now it's gone. As you said, it's driving me crazy.
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      • Profile picture of the author Lori Kelly
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        . . .
        Blogging is definitely something that I want to do, the same goes for social media. I know that they can help tremendously.

        I don't have a lot of time to spend on social media. I concentrate my efforts with SEO on my sites. Your time is probably limited too. Blog, blog and then blog some more using keyword rich words.

        My concern is that I was doing so well (IMO) without that stuff, and now it's gone. As you said, it's driving me crazy.

        You definitely had good results.

        I wish you the best. -Lori
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  • Profile picture of the author Electrical
    Originally Posted by fmOzilla View Post

    Please answer those and i think we can help you
    Thank you.

    Can you please help me find that info on Google Analytics?
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  • Profile picture of the author Lori Kelly
    Log into your account.

    Keywords

    Click on traffic, then overview.
    You see the keywords people are typing in search engines to find you.

    Take the ones that are used most often and write a blog post about the subject.

    Content

    Click on Content.
    Click on Overview.

    This shows your page views.
    Pageviews | Unique Pageviews | Average Time on Page | Bounce Rate | Exit

    You'll see your numbers here, these statistics should help you.

    Click on Site Content
    All Pages, Landing Pages.

    On this screen, you'll see what page was optimized (since it is the page the visitor saw on the search engine to get to your site).

    Click on Exit Pages to see what page they were looking at when they left.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by Lori Kelly View Post

      Log into your account.

      Keywords

      Click on traffic, then overview.
      You see the keywords people are typing in search engines to find you.

      Take the ones that are used most often and write a blog post about the subject.
      Oddly enough, the #1 keyword that the vast majority of people use says (not provided) Just my luck!

      I will definitely start blog writing, I am going to make a small Wordpress sub-site on my domain and start writing.
      Content

      Click on Content.
      Click on Overview.

      This shows your page views.
      Pageviews | Unique Pageviews | Average Time on Page | Bounce Rate | Exit

      You'll see your numbers here, these statistics should help you.
      Pageviews
      80

      Unique Pageviews
      67

      Avg. Time on Page
      00:01:24

      Bounce Rate
      58.82%

      % Exit
      42.50%

      Click on Site Content
      All Pages, Landing Pages.

      On this screen, you'll see what page was optimized (since it is the page the visitor saw on the search engine to get to your site).
      My main page and my Generator page are landed on the most. It says New Visits is 76.47%.
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      • Profile picture of the author Electrical
        One thing that I haven't mentioned is that after my site was up for a few months and getting 200+ visits per month, a friend suggested that I let him do some SEO. During that time I believe he did some article spinning and backlink pyramids. From what I read, those things aren't harmful.

        I never saw an increase. A few months later is when I the decrease started.

        Could the SEO that he did be hurting me? The reason why I didn't think it was is because I am still ranking high in the results.

        Just as a reminder, my results all look very good, it's just the overall visit rate has decreased 10 fold. My calls have also decreased about the same amount.
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  • Profile picture of the author alvinchua91
    If your rankings are really still there; then your friend's SEO techniques should be fine...

    Most probably, it is because of a change in demand. Simple as that. *shrugs*
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      I was happy when I was getting 150 visits from my state and about 5 calls per week.

      Maybe I should just use Google Adwords to try and get more page visits.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lori Kelly
    Stats are not too bad.

    If I were you, I wouldn't give Google my money for an Adwords campaign when I could rank my site myself on page 1.

    Just the word "spinning" makes me sick to my stomach. The only spinning I do is when I dust off my bike.

    I have sites on page 1 with NO backlinks. Say what you will, but on some of my sites, I have no backlinks, other sites I create my own quality backlinks.

    I don't think it's a coincidence your traffic slowed when you let your friend spin away.

    You know Generators is a popular topic. Write a blog post about that subject. A real blog post, no spinning. If you need help, hire a writer. That's money better spent than a Google Adword campaign.

    Just my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    After reading this thread my first thought is, is OP actually ranked for his keyword?

    OP, make sure your not logged into any Google accounts, clear your browser history & cache, run CCleaner (free), after all that do a Google search in something like Chrome Incognito.

    Personalized SERPs can make your own sites pages look like they are ranked in Google SERPs when they're actually not ranked at all.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      After reading this thread my first thought is, is OP actually ranked for his keyword?

      OP, make sure your not logged into any Google accounts, clear your browser history & cache, run CCleaner (free), after all that do a Google search in something like Chrome Incognito.

      Personalized SERPs can make your own sites pages look like they are ranked in Google SERPs when they're actually not ranked at all.
      I use a different browser for checking my rankings than I do for everything else and I fully reset the browser each time. I will usually change my IP before checking my rankings just to be sure.

      FWIW, I just got back from a neighboring town's library. My site is ranking high for everything I tried.

      For the 11 pages that I made aimed towards specific towns in my area, I come up on the first page for all of them when searching "town electrician" and in the first 4 for most of them. When searching for "my town electrician" (the town that the company is based out of, I come up first, I come up in the mid-page Google Maps listing as well. And Yelp and Superpage also come up in which I am the first unpaid listing.

      Maybe the keywords that I am looking for aren't what a normal person would be using? I figured people are going to be searching for "generator installation" "electrical repair" "mytown electrician" as the main ones. But I am unsure...
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      • Profile picture of the author options
        A lot of the searches could be from your competition. They have visited your site just to see who you are.

        I would say that's one of the reasons why you have seen a drop in visits.

        Also you were probably ranking well for longer tail keywords, now you may have dropped.
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        • Profile picture of the author danparks
          Originally Posted by options View Post

          Also you were probably ranking well for longer tail keywords, now you may have dropped.
          That's a good point. A site owner goes after a set of keywords, and tracks the results for just those keywords. But he could be ranking for other, related keywords as well. Possibly in the near past you ranked high for a few long tail keywords you weren't paying attention to, and now for whatever reason, you are no longer ranking as well for those keywords. That would be something that would fly under your radar and explain things. You can't know for sure about that, but it's something that could be playing a role in your drop in visitors.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    Your site took a big dump because when you gotta go, you gotta go
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Maybe I just got the keywords all wrong?

      I'd think that it would be pretty standard for electrician. Things like "mytown electrician" "generator installation" (my preference) "Electrical repair" etc. But maybe my customer base (homeowners) are searching with other keywords?
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