Investigating Dip in Website Traffic with Google Analytics

BACKGROUND

A startup company launched a new feature on the website landing page on March 30th 2022 that drove a significant amount of traffic in the months of April and May. However, in the month of June, there was a significant dip in the volume of traffic (69% decrease compared to May) that warrants investigation.

GOAL

To conduct a root cause analysis using Google Analytics to investigate the key driver of the significant dip in website traffic

METHODOLOGY

With access to the Google Analytics account of the start-up, I selected a suitable time frame (March 1 to July 31) to get a good picture of the trend which I compared to a similar period to rule out seasonality.

Then I identified dimensions and metrics that could give a clue to the cause of the dip in website traffic. They include traffic channels (social, direct, referral, organic), new vs returning users, unique visits and repeat visits, bounce rate, top pages, page views, conversion rate, conversion by traffic source, pages/session, sessions, goal completion etc.

I generated a custom report using these which I exported to excel and used Power BI to create a dashboard for better visualisation of trends for the root cause analysis.

Also on Google Analytics, I checked channels in the acquisition report and checked the different segments (device type, page type, audience report).

KEY INSIGHTS

1. Peaked at 474 users a day on 2 May and dipped from June into July
2. The bounce rate is 31.09% which is ok and shows that users are engaging with the site
3. Number of returning users at about 2000/month returned to the same after the peak (6000 users) in May
4. 83.6% of visitors within this period are new with only 16.4% being returning visitors. There were more returning users via Tablet and Desktop traffic (26.2%) compared to Mobile traffic (15.3%)
5. 40% of users came through referrals, about 27% through direct and social with organic search being the least at 1.7% of users.
6. Goal completion according to channels shows that the highest completions were through the social channel at 42% with direct and referral at 33% and 24% respectively and the least channels being email and organic search.
7. Significant increase in referral (660 users) and direct (345 users) channels before the stalling in June, email and organic search didn’t change much however there was a significant decrease in the social channel

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Since new user numbers have taken a hit there could be an issue with how users search for the website or how it appears on Google. Have you stopped sponsoring something and your recognition has dropped? This may mean it’s time to do some new keyword research or it could indicate a Google penalty.
2. Also as returning users have declined it could indicate an issue with the site structure and ease of use for your users. Maybe the site is reporting multiple 404 Not Found errors or the loading speed of the site is too slow, so users are leaving due to a poor experience. This should be investigated
3. Analyze top competitors’ sites to see what content is working for them in high-value keyword rankings, and compare against yours. Look for potential gaps in content strategy.
4. Check if you lost an important backlink from a relevant, authoritative site that had been driving top-notch referral traffic (like an important industry association or trade publication), and have the link reinstated.
5. Conduct an SEO analysis to determine what relevant keywords are performing well and then incorporate them into owned content assets, such as company blogs or white papers. From there, leverage social media advertising to promote your owned content as the social channel took a huge hit