Q2 2021 Blogging Report – Hit By Google Update?

Hi! I hope all is well with you guys. As usual, I’m here to share with you my quarterly blog updates. I do this to document the growth of my blog – Thrifty Hustler and I hope you find value in following my blogging journey. Here’s my Q2 2021 Blogging Report.

For this quarter, the biggest change that I have noticed is a huge drop in my June 2021 traffic. If I’m going to compare my Q1 2021 Pageviews vs Q2 2021 Pageviews, it will seem that my pageviews increased by almost 20%. However, when I scrutinized the number, I found out that this does not tell the whole story.

Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash

Q2 2021 Numbers at a Glance

My total page views for the first quarter of 2021 is at 51,573 while in the second quarter, it’s at 61,682. As I said earlier, at first look, it will seem that the growth trajectory continues.

However, when I drilled down on the monthly stats, it looks like I have to prepare for a downfall and need to do something to pull the traffic back up.

April 2021

• New Articles: 7
• Total Monthly Pageviews: 23, 747

May 2021

• New Articles: 12
• Total Monthly Pageviews: 23, 351

June 2021

• New Articles: 18
• Total Monthly Pageviews: 14, 764

Here are some screenshots of my Q1 vs Q2 2021 Pageviews:

 

June 2021 dropped by almost 40% compared to May 2021. Initially, when I first notice the drop in traffic earlier in June, I didn’t pay attention to it. Blog traffic does fluctuate every now and then and I have experienced in the past huge drops and then it just bounced on its own even if I didn’t do any changes.

However, this time around, the traffic was consistently dropping week by week last June.

 

What are the Possible Causes of the Huge Drop

Here are the main possible causes of this huge drop:

A Lot of Articles Need to Be Updated

I know that a lot of my articles that are doing well in SERP needed to be updated when 2021 came. However, I’ve put a hold on updating and just went on writing new articles.

As I have mentioned in my previous article, I know that it will eventually lose its ranking because Google and the readers will find the article irrelevant sooner or later if I don’t update them.

So, for June, I spent my spare time updating those articles, and hopefully, this will help improve the traffic this month.

Google Updates

Google releases algorithmic updates every now and then and June 2021 seems to have an update that affected a lot of websites.

Some websites are affected positively and some websites are affected negatively. Some people also saw a massive drop in their June 2021 traffic as per this article.

Google algorithm updates are always about improving the user experience. At the end of the day, Google Search is a business and they need to keep up with the ever-changing demands of their customers – Google Search users.

I’m still trying to understand what the details are but the core idea is – content should always be relevant, non-spammy, and helpful to readers. I know my description is pretty vague but really, that’s about it.

Google wants its users to find the most relevant and helpful answer to whatever the user types on Google search.

Other Reasons

Aside from the two issues above, there are also some other factors that affected the traffic drop which I will probably address in the next few weeks and these are:

• Pageload Speed
• User experience on my blog
• Competition
• Ever-changing online trends
• Etc

 

How to Minimize the Impact of a Google Algorithmic Change

I’m not a professional blogger and I’m not an expert on SEO. Thrifty Hustler has only been online for two years and I know that I still have so much to learn. But, in those years of blogging, I have noticed some common trends in SEO that I’d like to share with you guys:

Quality vs Quantity

SEO is about optimizing an article to make it relevant in the eyes of Google and in the eyes of your readers. Google is finding ways on how to detect the best content available online so it can put it on top of their searches.

At the end of the day, Google wants its Search Users to find value in using Google Search. And to be able to do so, they want to find the most relevant and the most helpful content online.

If you’re a new blogger, I suggest that you focus on creating the best possible content that you can ever write.

User Experience

Aside from producing high-quality content, another thing that can help a blog keep up with an ever-changing algorithm is by always improving the user experience on our blog.

Sure, our content is the reason why a reader found our blogs on the search engine. But imagine if your page didn’t load as fast as they want to.

Also, put yourself in your readers’ shoes, and try browsing your blog, is it an enjoyable experience? Are there things that can be improved on? Is there anything that does not add value to your reader’s experience?

Profitability and User Experience Balance

This is the main reason why I have not fully monetized my blog yet. I’m still figuring how I can balance profitability and user experience on my blog.

My ad setting is actually set to something like ‘Medium” which means, I’m not maximizing the number of ads that can be placed on my blog pages.

I’m even thinking of further minimizing it in the future or perhaps remove it totally and find an alternative source of income for this blog.

Continuous Learning and Adopting to Change

It is said that change is the only constant thing in this world and I do agree. I am aware that what I know now about blogging might be irrelevant in a few months or in a few years.

This is an ever-changing industry and there will always be a technological update every now and then.

Build Other Sources of Traffic

Google is not the only source of traffic (but it’s a huge source of traffic). And to minimize the impact of any Google Algorithmic change, I suggest that you also build other sources of traffic.

Personally, I didn’t find any success in building social media traffic yet. Frankly, because I have not exerted that much effort anyways aside from posting the links of my articles.

But a lot of people have found success in generating traffic from social media. So, give it a try!

 

Final Thoughts

Blogging, especially SEO can be a bit technical and it can also be overwhelming especially for new bloggers. However, it’s an important thing to learn especially if you want to grow your blog and to profit from it eventually.

Having said that, if you’re planning to start a blog, I suggest that while you produce your first few contents, try to read an article or two about SEO on a daily basis.

This will definitely help you a lot as you go along in your blogging journey.

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How about you? Did you experience a massive drop in traffic this June 2021? What do you think caused it? What are you doing to help pull up your traffic? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to comment down below.