The Challenge
Gravity was hired in 2018 to determine the cause(s) of a 20+% drop in organic traffic for a client in the mental health professional licensing space. What follows are the findings of our audit with recommended fixes and strategy steps to reverse the decline and get back onto a positive trajectory. After extensive research of the client’s Google Analytics, crawl of site, SEO-quality review, Google search console, Google trends and speed tests, we turned our attention to recent Google algorithm updates that related to the client.
In Just 6 Months,
Organic Traffic Improved 25%
The Solution
We were able to determine that the client’s website had been negatively impacted by a Google algorithm update called, ‘medic.’ The reason for the update was simple, Google was concerned about people getting unqualified medical advice from the internet, and this algorithm update penalized medical-related websites that lacked proper citation authority for the information or advice they published. A simple way to understand citation authority is this: whether it is reasonable for a user to see the name, face and qualifications of the authors. And, even though this client had been in business for decades and was operating in good faith, the website severely lacked citation authority and so was negatively impacted by this update - there were ‘winners’ and losers as with most updates.
Experience Required
Uncovering the nature of declining organic search takes years of SEO experience because the reasons why a website may be losing ground in organic search are extensive and co-mitigating.
Know Where and Why It Matters
After extensive research of the client’s Google Analytics, crawl of site, SEO-quality review, Google search console and more, we turned our attention to recent Google algorithm updates that relate to the client and line up with dates of decline.
Confidence in the Conclusion
Based on our fact-finding and research, we determined the client's website (company SIC code is that of a psychiatric hospital) was negatively affected by Google’s ‘Medic’ algorithm update.
Summary
After a variety of measures were taken towards improving visibility of credentials, qualifications, and photos, improving page load speed, SEO, UX, and implementing a more complete content marketing strategy, downward trajectory of organic traffic fixed and traffic growth and rank jumped back and showing almost 25% up.