Why slow decrease in visits?

[cass27]

Hi,

My website has seen a a slow reduction in visits since The beginning of October. I think this was because I wanted to target visitors in Ireland. So I put the words Ireland into strategic places in the body of the text, meta titles etc. Seeing how much visits had reduced, (by about 20%) I reversed my actions and took all the words out pertaining to Ireland. Unfortunately, three weeks later, instead of visits returning to their original level, they have reduced a further further 20%. Visits are now almost half of what they were six weeks ago!

Can any body help me with this? It is really having a drastic effect o0n visits.

Thank you for your time and any ideas,

[cass27]

The problem is: why is my visits still reducing when l have put back changes I originally made? Can anyone tell me what may have put backhappened here?

[MyWebPromotion]

I don't think the problem is with the words on your page. Google uses a lot of factors to rate pages in the search results. Take a look at some of the other things that can cause a site to be rated lower.

[cass27]

I don't think the problem is with the words on your page. Google uses a lot of factors to rate pages in the search results. Take a look at some of the other things that can cause a site to be rated lower.

thanks for replies but i think people arent quite grasping the problem here. the keyword was Ireland. This means the webiste was seen on Google .ie as well as google.co.uk. Therefore the visits on google.co.uk were diluted - as i say reduiced by 20%. So i took the word Ireland out of the text. But visits again reduced by another 20%. My feeling is Google is still putting this site up on google.ie. but now because Ireland has been taken out views continue to reduce.

Is this idea logical?
If so - how can i reverse it?

thank you for your time

[logic_earth]

Is your reasoning logical...No. Just because you talk about another country does not mean Google is going to throw you into local-country specific results. Google offers resources so you don't have to guess. http://www.google.com/webmasters/

[sudeep19]

I think the problem is in your sitemap.
Try to index sitemap as max as possible.
Include all your website link in sitemap.

[cass27]

I think the problem is in your sitemap.
Try to index sitemap as max as possible.
Include all your website link in sitemap.

Can you explain why you feel it is my sitemap?

And can you explain what you mean by Try to index sitemap as max as possible. how is this done?

thank you,

Nick

[ProSence]

Any changes within your site would affect visitors, and changing meta data is major change but what you can do is do what you are doing slowly with your SEO strategy, don't let the follow break it would be at the normal point in few days or month then the increase of visitors can be expected, first of all you have to recover.

[cass27]

Any changes within your site would affect visitors, and changing meta data is major change but what you can do is do what you are doing slowly with your SEO strategy, don't let the follow break it would be at the normal point in few days or month then the increase of visitors can be expected, first of all you have to recover.

Thanks for this but can you explain by what you meant by this:

don't let the follow break it would be at the normal point in few days or month then the increase of visitors can be expected,

thanks Nick

[ProSence]

What I meant is if there is a little increase in visitors then try to know how it is increasing and keep working on that so that it would increase more, so that the follow of increasing visitors would continue it won't break.

[benbob]

Without seeing your site, my first guess is that the latest algorithm update does not favour your site. As a result, with every re-crawl of your competitors' sites, they will be ranked higher than your site. Time to be very hones with yourself, look at your site and ask yourself this question: is this the most informative site I have seen on this subject for a long time?
If the answer is "no", the solution is clear.

[robert.duhamel]

You may need to optimize your site as you know if Google showing your site on first page or on second page, It doesn't mean it will stay there forever. Obviously it will decrease your traffic as 70% visitors come through search engines. Not sure what is the role of word "Ireland" but you may need to optimize it.

[Conran]

Adding or removing a country name in text will not affect traffic adversely unless you have replaced everything with new content all about Ireland and the search terms you had were affected. For instance, if you were operating a travel advice site for the UK, and then decided to switch this to Ireland, then you could expect to see this change. Those using "uk travel advice" would no longer be coming to you, and there is a direct correlation between the search numbers and the population seeking such information.

But, as I doubt your target searchers in such a way, adding and removing mentions of countries should not affect your search traffic.

As said, I think this is about something else on your site that Google objects to.

Have you used a lot of duplicate content? Do you have advertisements and banners above the fold? Have competitors done something in the last month to place themselves above you?

When you see a decline in traffic, the first thing you should do is analyse your competition to see if there is anything they have done to increase their relevance above you. If there is nothing to see there, then it's reasonable to assume that Google has lost some faith in your site and you need to try to work out what they changed in the two weeks before and after the visible decline and try to establish what it is about your site that didn't meet the requirements implemented by that algorithm change.

Edited to add: a lot of people immediately assume that it's Google's fault for lowing their traffic, and while I am no fan of Google, this is not a sensible conclusion to immediately jump to. All webmasters are in competition with others in their field, you can change something about your site, or develop a marketing and SEO strategy to knock your competition off the top spot for something, but they will be doing the same too. Always keep an eye on your competition and assume that they are watching you in just the same way. A decline in traffic could just mean that the linking strategy they started a month ago when they found you becoming someone to compete with has finally kicked in.

[PicnicTutorials]

Panda update is why. Same happened to me. I read for about a week on all the ways to fix and did them all. I seem to of fixed it

[PicnicTutorials]

My best guess was I was too optimized

[anils]

It is not due to inclusion/exclusion of a word but due to the google algo updates. Could be emd if you have one or penguin and you are not the only one who is suffering from this. Keep doing your usual activities and try to add some quality links so get back your position.

[TechnoBear]

As the OP hasn't returned with any feedback in over a month, thread closed.