What is traffic decay and how do I combat it?

SEO is a marathon, not a race. One of the reasons why sprinting will not bring you success in SEO is because it revolves around content. It should be a permanent part of your marketing strategy. More and more people are beginning to realise that effective content marketing requires the consistent publication of high-quality content. However, not everyone is aware that publication is not the end of the journey of the content. What you do with the content you have already published is just as important as creating new content! Why? Among other reasons, because of the phenomenon of traffic decay. Read on to find out what it is and - above all! - how to deal with it.

Traffic decay - definition

With the phenomenon known as traffic decay (interchangeably: content decay) is when the traffic generated by the content has gradually decreased over the past 12 months. Naturally, this phenomenon reflects negatively on SEO efforts due to less traffic to the website.

5 phases your content goes through

Every type of published content goes through certain phases, and the term traffic decay is simply a term for the natural process that content goes through. 

Specialists from Animalz presented the following five phases of content 'vitality':

1. quilting (spike phase) - content enters this phase when it is published and begins to reach its audience
2. detentions (trough phase) - noticeable stagnation of traffic
3. growth (growth phase) - traffic increases again within a few months
4. stabilisation (plateau phase) - movement increases up to a certain point and remains in this state
5. fading (decay phase) - the number of page views begins to fall

As you can see - periods of growth, stagnation and decline are completely normal for published content. Do you notice that you are losing traffic? You are not necessarily doing something wrong. At the same time, this does not mean that you cannot prevent it.

Traffic decay - causes

Wondering what causes traffic decay? Quite rightly, in order to be able to combat a phenomenon, it is necessary to know what causes it. There can be several reasons for traffic decay, these are primarily:

• algorithm updates - Google is always experimenting with its algorithms and sometimes a change can hit content that was previously doing well.

• activities of competitors - It is often the case that competing blogs analyse your best content, expand on it, improve it and thus overtake you in the rankings. Content marketing is inherently competitive. If your content gets old and someone else provides your audience with more accurate information, higher quality and better formatted text - you could lose your position.

• technical problems of the site where the content is published - How does the website perform in terms of SEO? How long does it take to load? Is the navigation intuitive? Does the content contain broken links or oversized images? A lot depends on these factors as they affect the user experience. If you do not take care of the technical aspects of your website, you will have no chance of staying in the top positions in Google.

How do you find out if you are experiencing traffic decay on your site? 

In the world of SEO, success is based on previous successes. The more people who click, consume and share your content, the better the page ranks in Google, and thus even more people click, consume and share... However, a drop in traffic can have a similar effect - snowball effect. When content becomes less attractive, fewer people engage with it, informing Google of its low value and lowering your rankings.

Remember that a drop in the search results from, say, second position to ninth can be disastrous for potential clicks and conversions on a website! Such a prospect can be particularly frightening when you consider that, for 57% marketers operating in the B2B SEO market are the most important lead generator!

However, before you go into action and fight traffic decay, you need to check whether this phenomenon has affected your content. If so, which ones? How can you do this? There are several tools that can help you detect traffic decay on your site. 

Google Analytics - analyse in Google Analytics number of page views, rejection rate and time spent on specific pages. Keep a close eye on your blog posts and look out for changes in traffic. If there is a steady decline, you are in a fading phase. The downside of Google Analytics is that you have to do everything manually and analysis will take time.

SEMrush - The position tracking option will alert you when any of the tracked pages score a drop or rise in the SERPs. This can be useful for detecting changes due to traffic fading.

Content Decay from ClickFlow - function Content Decay has been specifically designed to identify fading. It connects to the account Google Search Console, and then automatically searches for and tags posts whose traffic has declined over the past year.

3 tips on how to prevent traffic decay

Already know that you are experiencing traffic decay on your website? It's time to take action! Here's how to combat this phenomenon and prevent it from occurring in the future.

Create evergreen content

Every industry has issues that always remain 'fresh'. Evergreen content is that which is up-to-date and useful to users, regardless of when they read it. To create evergreen content, there are several steps to follow:

• carry out a keyword analysis, selecting those topics that are not seasonal and that generate sustained interest
• choose the most appropriate format, e.g. guide, overview, top list, FAQ
• divide the content into smaller parts - chapters, paragraphs - in order to make it accessible to the reader, despite its complex structure

Update existing content

Take a look at your published content. Perhaps the information they contain is no longer relevant? Perhaps research has emerged over the course of months or years that makes your article outdated? It is not only specific figures that change, but also market conditions, trends or user habits. Therefore, keep a check on whether what you have published in the past needs to be corrected. 

Get more links leading to your best content

To further strengthen your content, focus on acquiring links leading to it. If you publish guest posts on external portals, include links to recently updated blog content that requires additional amplification. Linking from high authority sites will help with both a single post and the whole site.

And don't forget to add internal links leading to newly updated posts. This will not only provide a better experience for site users, but will also help Google understand the structure of the site.

Traffic decay... in decline!

Traffic decay can cause frustration. The last thing you want to see is a steady decline in traffic relating to content you've spent a lot of time on. Sometimes traffic decay is to be expected, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it. With the right tools and strategies, you can be ready to act the moment the traffic decay occurs, or even earlier. This will ensure that your content scores high on Google. 

Do you want to be sure that the disappearance of traffic will not ruin your work on your website's ranking? Contact SEOSki, where we will take care of your content!