Losing traffic to your firm’s site can be frustrating. With less traffic, it’s likely you’re experiencing a loss in leads as well. To get your site back on track, you’ll need to do some digging on a possible cause. Here are a few different reasons why your firm’s site may be losing traffic:

You Were Hit by a Google Update

The first reason may be the most obvious. Everyday Google updates it’s algorithm, but some updates are much larger than others. Using Google Analytics, look at your firm’s organic traffic from different sources. If you find that your traffic from Google is down, but all other search engines are up, then you may have been hit by an update. Many Google Algorithm updates are reported on different marketing news sites, like Search Engine Roundtable or Search Engine Journal. See if the dates of the suspected algorithm line up with your loss in traffic. Once you establish what the update with about, then you can fix your firm’s site accordingly.

Competitors Are Doing More

Sometimes, a competitor’s actions may influence how your firm does organically. If a competing law firm updates their site and content, they may climb up in the search engine result rankings, passing your firm. This can lower where your firm lands on the search engine result pages (SERPs) and subsequently cause your traffic to drop. Third party tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs allow you to look at how competitors are performing organically, even showing your firm’s growth and a competitor’s side by side. If you see one competitor has grown their online organic presence, take a look at what they’ve done. They may have done a full redesign, updated old content or created content for new keywords. You can then make a plan on how your firm wants to optimize your site to regain any lost traffic.

Your Content is Old

Over time, content can decay. A page that was once popular a few years ago may not be relevant now. If your firm has not updated any older content, then this may be the cause of the drop in traffic. Try looking at your top performing pages over a large timeframe, such as a year, to see if any have seen a slow decline in traffic. Consider updating the pages, optimizing for new keywords or providing new information that may be relevant now.

You’re Impacted by Seasonal Trends

Seasonal trends can heavily influence traffic to your firm’s site. For example, personal injury attorneys may find a spike in traffic during summer months when people are more likely to travel and get in car accidents. Similarly, lawyers who specialize in divorce may see a drop in traffic during the winter, but a spike come March*. If you’re not sure if you firm is subject to seasonal trends, consider examining your traffic for the past few years, looking for any patterns. This can help you establish if there are particular months that your firm sees less traffic than normal.

*www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/why-divorce-spikes-in-august-and-march/496883/