Anyone else struggling with SEO lately?

SEO
1

I run a website that used to bring in over 200k visitors a month, but now it’s dropped to about 50k a month since April. I’m at a loss about what’s going wrong. I’ve been trying everything—keyword research, building backlinks, speeding up the site, improving on-page SEO, making better content, you name it.

What’s confusing me more is seeing competitors rank higher despite failing core web vitals, having fewer backlinks, a lower domain rating, poor designs, and even content that doesn’t properly answer search queries.

What’s working for everyone else these days?

2

What kind of business are you running?

3

Will1 said:
What kind of business are you running?

What do you mean exactly? Like outside of SEO stuff?

4

Have you checked the ad density on these competitor sites?

5

Gerry said:
Have you checked the ad density on these competitor sites?

When the drop started, our ad density was high. We were running search and performance max campaigns with a budget of about 70k a month.

6

What’s your niche?

7

sage said:
What’s your niche?

It’s addiction treatment.

8

Can you share your site? I’d say focus on getting solid backlinks from reputable sites, create niche-specific quality content, and make sure your technical SEO and schema are all good.

9

SubSavant said:
Can you share your site? I’d say focus on getting solid backlinks from reputable sites, create niche-specific quality content, and make sure your technical SEO and schema are all good.

Sure, it’s theedgetreatment.com

We’ve been publishing new articles that initially rank well but then slowly drop off.

10

Switch your site from WordPress to Next.js. That could solve a lot of the issues you’re describing. I know it’s a big shift, but it might be worth it.

11

Williams said:
Switch your site from WordPress to Next.js. That could solve a lot of the issues you’re describing. I know it’s a big shift, but it might be worth it.

Funny you mention that—we switched to Next.js before the traffic started dropping.

12

@Aydin
Oh, I see. So what exactly is your niche?

13

Google keeps changing its algorithm, and it’s hard to predict how it’ll affect websites. Some sites jump to the first page while others drop or even get de-indexed. Don’t give up, though. Maybe try submitting to other search engines like Bing and Yandex. They can help you gain traffic and might even help with Google rankings in the long run.

14

@zachdin
If I’m already optimising for Google, shouldn’t that work for Bing and Yandex too? Or are you suggesting buying ads on those platforms?

15

Aydin said:
@zachdin
If I’m already optimising for Google, shouldn’t that work for Bing and Yandex too? Or are you suggesting buying ads on those platforms?

No, no need to buy ads. My posts were Google-optimised but got indexed on Bing and Yandex without extra effort. Even after Google de-indexed some of my content, it stayed live on Bing. It’s worth a shot.

16

I’ve had similar struggles. Have you tried using kwrds.ai for keyword research? It could help you figure out what’s affecting your rankings.

17

DigitalDruid said:
I’ve had similar struggles. Have you tried using kwrds.ai for keyword research? It could help you figure out what’s affecting your rankings.

Just buy an ad.

18

Reynolds said:

DigitalDruid said:
I’ve had similar struggles. Have you tried using kwrds.ai for keyword research? It could help you figure out what’s affecting your rankings.

Just buy an ad.

Haha, good one.

19

Reynolds said:

DigitalDruid said:
I’ve had similar struggles. Have you tried using kwrds.ai for keyword research? It could help you figure out what’s affecting your rankings.

Just buy an ad.

You mean like Google ads? We’ve been running those, but I don’t think they impact SEO rankings much.