How to Recover Website Traffic After Google Core Updates

Maintaining the position of your business website is a task with serious challenges, as competition has really increased recently and you have spent a lot of time and effort on it. Today I will try to tell you about a topic that can cause these difficulties: Google Core Updates!

Yes, that’s right, you didn’t hear wrong, there are Google Core Updates. Google’s search results algorithm update to improve search performance and user experience.

Google core updates can cause a significant drop in your website traffic, which is normal. I would like to remind you that this is not just a difficulty you are experiencing. We are talking about a situation where even the most expert digital marketers from website owners have difficulty.

But there is no need to worry. There are ways to minimize the impact of these updates and improve or even increase your traffic.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through strategies to help you understand and adapt to Google’s algorithm changes.

I will try to make this guide as simple but effective as possible so that even if you are not an SEO expert, you will be able to understand and apply this guide. It is written in simple and understandable language to help you regain lost traffic and improve your search engine (Google) rankings.

So, now that you have read this article, you are ready to get started. Take your first step on this journey with me.

Table of Contents

Understanding Google Core Updates

I feel like you’re asking about Google core updates and what their purpose is. I can answer this simply by increasing the relevance and quality of search results. I will try to elaborate on this later in the article.

You should be aware that these updates can affect the visibility of your website on search engines. This happens because the core updates do not fit the existing SEO techniques structure on your website. This can therefore affect your website’s search engine ranking and reduce traffic to your website. You will inevitably face a chain reaction.

Why is Google making these updates?

The answer is hidden in the user experience. Google is trying to ensure that users get the most relevant and best possible results after its measurements and tests. This is achieved through continuous updates.

I have listed a few points for you to understand Google core updates:

Don’t think of these updates as a punishment against your website. Such thinking will only lead you to make more mistakes.
The goal here is to encourage high-quality content. Unfortunately, due to the proliferation of AI tools, the number of poor quality and spammy content is increasing day by day.
If you do not pay attention to SEO rules on your website, it is inevitable that you will experience fluctuations in ranking as a result of these updates.
In general, Google releases these updates several times a year. With these continuous updates, it always tries to highlight quality content.
Updates made are irreversible. For this, you need to determine and update your SEO strategy according to the new update.

Identifying Signs of Traffic Drop Post-Update

The best way to observe the impact of the Google core update is a sudden drop in website traffic. At this point, you should pay attention to the fact that this drop will not occur within a few hours. This drop may occur 1 day after the core update or 1 month after the core update. However, it would be a weak statement to say that this is the only sign.

Another sign is your ranking, which you can also track through the Google search console. As your ranking drops, you may notice a noticeable drop in organic traffic as your website will be shown to fewer users.

The other thing you will observe is a decrease in indexed pages. According to the evaluation of Google’s updated algorithm, the content quality of your page is low and irrelevant.

Staying Informed on Algorithm Changes

Under this heading, I will explain how to keep track of the changes mentioned above, which are harmful for your website and therefore for your business.

By following Google algorithm changes, you can understand the potential impact on your website and take precautions accordingly.

You can follow Google’s Webmaster Central Blog for official updates. Apart from that, you can follow SEO blogs and forums to understand what the effects of the new update are and what it causes. By following SEO blogs and forums, you can take more effective measures by combining the experiences of people who have the same problem as you and the opinions of experts.

Do not forget to use your judgment while doing the research I mentioned. Not every data on the internet may be correct. You need to combine many data and compare them with the original source.

Let’s talk about an example.

Josh has a website that sells household goods online. This website lost almost all of its organic traffic after the March 2023 update. Josh searched the internet to understand why this happened and tried to implement solutions. However, he was unsuccessful because the solutions were only valid for the specified website. He then worked with an SEO digital marketing agency to figure out what the problem was.

Instead of analyzing the link to Google’s official core updates and comparing it with other data, Josh went for subjective solutions. However, the Google March 2023 update was more about user experience.

Page load speed, accessibility, link descriptions and content quality, etc. You need to work with a team of experts to ensure all these.

The person in the example I mentioned increased the page speed, but lost traffic because the accessibility and content quality did not increase. Of course, it is important to take all precautions to protect against such updates.

As mentioned in my example, relying only on information from forums and blogs can often be harmful. It is always better to compare the information on Google’s own website for updates to the Google and use your judgment to find a solution.

Conducting a Comprehensive Website Audit

A website audit is a comprehensive analysis that helps identify and take action on issues that could affect your website’s performance. This audit covers all aspects of your website. This includes technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO and content quality.

A comprehensive audit of your website can help you understand the impact of the Google core update and help you take action. It also plays an important role in determining why traffic is dropping.

What Does a Comprehensive Website Audit Look Like and Include?

There are some tools to perform a comprehensive website audit. For example, Semrush, Moz, SimilarWeb. These tools only perform the audit. To fix the errors — if you don’t have technical knowledge — you need to contact an SEO expert.

I would like to briefly explain this to you in bullet points. You can find the simple SEO guide in my other article.

1. Technical SEO Audit: This audit checks the technical structures on your website. For example, <h> tags, meta tags in the title, page loading speeds, link descriptions, accessibility. Solving this item requires technical knowledge and skills.
2. On-Page Audit: This audit checks keyword distribution on the page, content quality (e.g. length of paragraphs, comprehensibility of sentences), internal links, external links, etc.
3. Off-Page Audit: This is for auditing your presence outside your website. In short, it is for auditing your presence on the internet. This includes factors such as social media accounts, your mentions on other websites.

Now that we’ve briefly told you about website audits, it’s time to move on to the next topic.

Utilizing Google Search Console for Traffic Insights,

One of the valuable free tools for identifying potential problems and improving the website is the Google Search Console.

The Google search console gives you the information you need to understand why your website traffic is dropping. However, as you can imagine, solving problems here requires technical knowledge and skills.

I have gathered a few sections of the Google search console for you to look at to understand the reasons for reduced traffic.

1. Indexing: When you first open the search console, one of the information you will see in the panel that appears is indexing. When you click on the “Full Report” link next to the graph, you will see why your content is not indexed on the page that opens.
2. Experience: The information you will see in this section is the experience your website gives to the user. In one of the fields here, you will see the text “Core Web Vitals”. Core Web Vitals shows the loading speed of your page as well as various tests. Accessibility, SEO, etc.
3. HTTPS: What you will see outside Core Web Vitals is “HTTPS”, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. So you’ll see a table that shows which pages your users are connecting to securely.
4. Improvements: There are a few values you will see in this section.
  - Breadcrumbs: This value evaluation factor is a functionality that allows users to see where they are on the website and how to get back to the homepage. It is also a feature that makes it easier for search engines to navigate your website.
  - FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions section. The purpose of this as an evaluation is purely user experience. It allows users who come to your website to easily find the answers to the help they are looking for.
  - SiteLinks Search Box: This is the box that allows users to search Google search results without entering your website. This box increases the user experience as the user accesses information more quickly.
  - Review snippets: In Google and other search engine results, it usually shows star and rating values. Sometimes it appears with short texts. It increases the trust in your website because it appears as a remarkable visual in search results.

By checking the values I mentioned above, you can take the actions and make improvements. This data gives you a big clue to understand how and why you are affected by the Google core update.

Reviewing Content Quality and Relevance

The most important factor in the Google ranking algorithm is definitely content quality. Relevant and high quality content is the favorite content of search engines. As I mentioned in my article before, it is related to user experience. Let’s explain this a little more for you.

A user searching for home appliance maintenance on Google will see thousands of results when they type “home appliance maintenance” in the search bar. However, “appliance maintenance” is a broad term. You need to enrich this term with sub-topics.

When making this enrichment, you can either prepare a single piece of content or you can prepare more than one content on related sub-topics and present it to the user. For example, you can prepare content about “refrigerator maintenance”, which is a sub-topic of the search term “electrical household appliances maintenance”, and connecting them with internal links will greatly increase the content quality of your website.

One thing you should pay attention to when preparing this content is Google’s E-A-T principle. The E-A-T principle stands for: Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. Let’s take a brief look at this issue. I will explain it in a little more detail in the following part of our article.

Expertise: Determines the expertise of the content creator in the field.
Authoritativeness: It is the reputation and recognition of the person, site or resource that created the content.
Trustworthiness: The accuracy and reliability of the content and overall trust in the site.

To indicate that your content follows the E-A-T rules, the sentences you write must have proof. Apart from that, the sources you cite need to be reliable, or the images you use need to be really relevant. The answer to your question is yes, Google has the ability to analyze these things.

Apart from that, your content needs to be relevant to your target audience. For example, if you are targeting the UK, you need to know the habits of the people there. Because in the UK, hot and cold taps are separate!

Of course, your content also needs to be up-to-date. Updating your content with new information will increase the user experience. After all, sharing information from Windows XP in a blog post about Windows may seem ridiculous.

Remember, content is king. Remember to make it a priority in your strategy to improve your website traffic!

On-Page SEO Optimization Strategies

The most critical aspect of improving your website traffic is on-page SEO. You should not ignore this criterion in order to regain your lost ranking in search results or to increase your current ranking to higher levels.

On-page SEO includes ensuring that titles, meta descriptions and headings contain your target keyword. Like “refrigerator maintenance” as in the example I just gave.

Apart from that, it will be a real benefit if you consider the structure of your content. Instead of writing long paragraphs, break your paragraphs into small chunks. Put relevant pictures between them. These can be pictures of info graphics or pictures of how to fix something. Who wants to read long and boring paragraphs!

I will write a list of important factors that you should focus on when doing your on-page SEO audit.

Title tags: Another name is Meta Title. This tag is a title that is a summary of the page and is the first text that the user sees in search results. It must be between 50–60 carat.
Meta descriptions: It is a tag that summarises the content of your website. It appears just below the meta title and must be between 120–150 characters.
Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.): They are the title tags on your page. There is an order that must be followed. The page title must have the H1 tag and can only be used once. Other headings continue with H2. H3 is the subheading of H2. In this way, it proceeds in a hierarchical order. The last heading H tag is H6.
URL structure: The URL structure also needs to be relevant to the content. For example, if you have a content that mentions ‘refrigerator repair’, the URL should be the same. Example URL should be as follows: ‘domain.tld/blog/how-to-do-refrigerator-repair’.
Image alt text: Image alt text is the description of the image you add to the article for the search engine and disabled individuals. For example, the alt text of a picture you add for refrigerator repair should include the information ‘refrigerator engine’. It will also benefit your website if the name of the image is the same as the text you write.
Internal link: As in the example we just gave, it will be very difficult to attract traffic to your website with a single content with a wide search term. At the same time, you need to create content related to search terms and support them with internal links.

Enhancing User Experience (UX) and Site Usability

So we’ve talked about user experience, what is this “user experience”?

User experience, which is the most important for Google and even the basis of everything, causes your website to rank higher. There are a few things you should pay attention to while ensuring this.

You should make sure that your website is easy for the user to navigate. Menu links and icons need to be explained. At the same time, it is another consideration that there is a certain distance between them and that they are large enough. The closer they are to each other, the harder it is to click/touch.

This situation both increases the user’s exit rate from the website excessively and shows it as an unusable website in the eyes of Google. It is not limited to these alone. The ratio of the color of the background to the text color, i.e. contrast. When you use a dark text on a black background, it is difficult to read content.

Page speed also affects the user experience. No one waits for a page load longer than 3 seconds. Even if they wait, your website will not look properly in the user’s eyes due to the late loading of assets that affect the appearance of your website.

Since the use of mobile devices is quite high today, it is imperative that your website is mobile compatible. For example, a user who visits your website from a mobile device does not want to see huge text or scrolling images. They want a more compact and cleaner look, and of course Google prefers such websites more.

Addressing Technical SEO Issues

To quickly explain how these issues will be addressed:

Broken Links: When you move or delete content on your website, those who visit your website through this link encounter the 404 error code. It is not only valid for links. It applies to all assets on your website and is annoying for search engines like Google. For example, even if you change the name of an image, it will be a broken link. To solve the broken link problem, you need to redirect with a correct redirect code (301, 302, 410).

What are the Broken Links Redirect Codes Descriptions?
- 301 — Permanently Moved Redirect Code: When you redirect with this code, you inform search engines that the content is permanently redirected.
- 302 — Temporarily Moved Redirect Code: This code informs search engines that the redirect is temporary.
- 410 — Gone Redirect Code: This redirect code notifies search engines that the content is completely gone and deleted.
Duplicate Content: This is usually a problem experienced by e-commerce websites and large blogs. It is caused by using the same content several times. You need to have unique content. For example, a color indicator or SKU for the product.
Slow Loading Issues: As mentioned earlier in the article, slow page loading is a serious problem. It minimizes the user experience. In our age, users now want to access information quickly and easily. No one will wait for more than 3 seconds for a page with loading problems to open.
Secure Connection (HTTPS): Secure connection (HTTPS) is a protocol. It is created by adding the suffix S, “secure”, to the end of normal connections (HTTP). To add this, you need to define a certificate for your website. It secures the data exchange of users.

Off-Page SEO and Link Building Techniques

Off-page SEO, which involves building high-quality backlinks, can also improve your ranking in search engines. Strengthening your internet presence outside your website is called off-page SEO.

As you can understand from what I just mentioned, they are links from other websites to your website. They provide confidence by informing search engines that your content is valuable and reliable.

But don’t forget that not all backlinks are equal and are not useful for your website.

Here are a few important things to consider when building backlinks.

Relevance: Links from websites in your industry or niche will be better for you. For example, you have a website that provides ‘SEO Services’. However, your backlink comes from a website or content that provides ‘Horse carriage sales’ service. Here I would like to ask you; would this link be useful for you?
Authority: Links from high-authority websites that have established themselves in the Internet world and are trusted by search engines and users weigh more heavily on the scales. For example, a link from a newly opened website and business will not be useful for you. However, the link you get from a website with a certain value and authority will be better.
Diversity: A backlink profile of different types but relevant content to your website is useful.

Analyzing and Building Backlink Profiles

Backlink analysis, which helps us understand where your links come from and their quality, is a factor to improve your website traffic.

In addition to Google Search Console, you can use tools such as SEMRush, MOZ or Ahrefs to perform backlink analysis. By analyzing links that are not relevant to your content and have a high toxicity level, you can upload a disavow file on the Google search console and tell search engines that you reject these links.

Getting rid of these toxic links will increase the credibility of your website and increase your ranking in search engines.

Apart from your website, focus on strengthening your online presence. Use your social media accounts actively and effectively. Guest posting, affiliate marketing and shareable high quality content will help you build a credible online presence outside of your website.

For example, you have a website that offers “PPC Services”. You create blog posts related to this term on your website. You have done your keyword research and created your post with an AI.

There is nothing wrong with creating a post with AI. But there is a problem with creating your entire post with AI. Most AIs contain information up to a certain date. For example, ChatGPT keeps the information until March 2023 in its memory and provides you with this information.

As we mentioned before, it is essential to use up-to-date information for user experience. Therefore, your article will not get enough traffic because everyone is using the same AI tool nowadays.

This means that your content will be the same as any other website. Use AI only as an assistant. You can get information like how to write or the placement of headings.

Remember that E-A-T rules are one of the important factors that will make you stand out in this race!

When you create your quality content, it will be noticed and thanks to this, when a website with high authority cites your content, it will give a backlink to your website. Of course, a social media influencer can also do this.

Leveraging Social Media and Diversifying Traffic Sources

Social media can be a powerful tool for increasing website traffic. It allows you to engage with your audience and share your content.

Build a strong social media presence on platforms where your target audience is active. Post engaging content regularly and encourage your followers to share it.

It is also important to diversify your traffic sources. Don’t rely solely on organic search traffic. Consider other channels such as email marketing, paid advertising and referral traffic.

Content Strategy and Adaptation

One of the other and most important factors to improve your website traffic is to adapt your content strategy. When adapting your content, you need to align it with Google’s E-A-T principles and user search intent.

Google uses these principles, E-A-T, which stands for expertise, competence and credibility, to evaluate the quality of your content. I have already mentioned the main purpose of these principles in my article.

I have explained some ways to apply the E-A-T principles to your content:

You need to demonstrate your expertise in your field in the content.
Cite authoritative sources and include source links to support your claims in the content.
Citing sources proves the accuracy of the information and also helps you to be transparent.

Focusing on E-A-T Principles and User Search Intent

When users type a query into a search engine, your word research pays off. Therefore, understanding the search intent of users is a very important factor.

Although there are many types of search intent, I will share two basic search intent with you.

Informational search intent: It is the type of search that users are usually looking for an answer to a question and for this purpose. In other words, users make this search because they want more information or guidance on the subject they are looking for. For example, ‘What is SEO?’, ‘What is PPC?’.
Navigation search purpose: This type of search takes place in order to reach a specific website or a specific page directly. The user usually uses the search engine to find a site or page they already know. For example, ‘Facebook login’, ‘X account deletion’. Being in the focus of such searches ensures a high conversion rate.
While preparing your content, make sure that your target keywords also fit the four items above.

Apart from these, regularly reviewing and updating your content ensures that you remain relevant, accurate and valuable to your target audience.

Utilizing Different Content Formats and Engagement Strategies

Including different content formats such as videos, infographics, podcasts and interactive applications on your website will help to attract your target audience.

It is also important to encourage user-generated content so that your user feels like they are contributing to the story you are creating. This is basically an achievement in the eyes of the user and increases their engagement with your website. For example, allowing users to comment or implementing user feedback on your website.

Finally, interacting with your online community also increases your value on the internet. Responding to comments and participating in discussions is another way to engage with your audience. Know what’s being said about your brand!

The things I’ve mentioned will help your brand become a valuable authority and your website will attract high traffic.

Monitoring and Analysis for Ongoing Optimization

Monitoring and analysing your website’s performance to understand the impact of your SEO efforts and make data-driven decisions is another way to improve traffic.

Here are some basic and important metrics to track:

Organic traffic: A metric for the number of visitors from search engines. It is the type of traffic that is the fruit of your SEO work and flows to your website using only search engines.
Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing a single page. If this percentage is high, you can understand that your content on your website is wrong. Wrongly written content, slow website, backlink from irrelevant place.
Average session duration: The average time spent by the visitor visiting your website. This is completely related to the quality of your website. It is therefore important to have relevant content.
Conversion rate: It is the percentage of visitors who complete an action you want on your website. Purchasing on e-commerce websites is a conversion, or filling out a form for a website that provides web design services is a conversion.

If you examine the metrics I mentioned and analyse them well, it will be inevitable to improve your traffic.

Setting Up Alerts and Using Analytics Tools

Using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can create alerts and easily track your website traffic.

The tools I mentioned earlier in the article provide you with detailed information about your website traffic, user behaviour and search performance. The information you collect and track here gives you the opportunity to prevent potential problems, solve existing problems and make improvements.

Regular monitoring and good analysis is one of the most important keys to improving your website traffic.

A/B Testing and Conversion Rate Optimisation

One of the best techniques for conversion rate optimisation is A/B testing. As you can understand from the name of the test, you can easily understand whether the user is version A or version B. You can also create a better version with the data you will extract from here.

While doing this test, you can understand how the user reacts to elements such as headlines, call-to-actions, images and content layout. The purpose of this test is to realise what your target audience reacts to the most. This gives you a better conversion rate.

A higher conversion rate will give you more traffic! Users who see value and authority in your content will share it and come back for more.

Conclusion and Recovery Plan

It is a long and painstaking path to regain website traffic, which is a truly complex process after the Google core update. This path requires a comprehensive and patient understanding of SEO, strategic and disciplined approach.

The strategies discussed in this guide can help you regain and increase your website traffic. But remember that results may not be immediate and really require discipline, dedication and patience. Keep in mind that SEO is a long-term and consistent game.

Good results don’t happen in a day!

Staying Patient and Persistent

The SEO journey for your website is an arduous path that involves patience and perseverance. It may take weeks or even months to see the results of your struggle. Having a real order is a situation that can take years.

Don’t let your initial setbacks discourage you. No one was born with a ready-made website. Always maintain your perseverance, discipline and patience. Of course, before doing these, make a plan and stick to this plan!

Learning from Past Traffic Drops

Like every challenge in life, every traffic drop is an opportunity for you to learn and experience. It helps you understand the impact of Google’s algorithm changes on your website and helps you improve the quality of your brand and website.

Remember that Google’s changes are not a punishment for you, but rather a benefit to you.

Having such an experience will help you improve your analytical acumen. It gives you better mobility in future problems. It puts you in a more advantageous position, especially in stress management.

How to Recover Website Traffic After Google Core Updates: A Comprehensive Guide