Your website is your business’s main asset for increased online visibility and brand recognition. Building a website people want to visit (and return to) takes a lot of effort, so seeing a sudden spike in website traffic may seem like a positive achievement.
However, if you notice the spike is mainly due to traffic from another country, it should set off some alarm bells, especially if you did not target this country in your current marketing strategy.
Reasons for a Sudden Spike in Website Traffic
Heavy traffic on a particular day from a specific country does not always mean something bad is happening. However, you need to quickly determine why your website has had a substantial increase in traffic and what could be causing the sudden influx of users.
A Successful Marketing Campaign
It is always possible that your marketing efforts paid off, and people worldwide want to get in on a product or service.
News Headline Appearance
If you market the services of a large or international corporation, its website may experience a spike in traffic if it makes news headlines.
Viral Social Media Content
If one or more of your social media posts within your campaign goes viral, it can also instantly increase website traffic.
Successful Backlinks
Your backlink strategy secures backlinks from reputable websites in a particular country. This could also boost organic traffic.
Bot or Other Negative Activity
Unfortunately, it is also true that bot activity can cause direct traffic spikes from one location with low session durations.
It could also come from a business selling website traffic. This is a relatively new sales tactic launched by companies hoping the website owner will investigate the cause of the traffic increase, discover their service, and hire them.
Verifying Positive or Negative Website Traffic Spikes
Avoid making assumptions about website traffic spikes. Whenever traffic data looks different on your analytics report, verify the cause first. Identify and use any excellent rankings to your advantage.
Positive Reasons for Traffic Spikes
If you believe international media coverage caused the spike, check online resources for proof.
If you find articles, reviews, and social media posts mentioning your brand in the country the spike originated from, it is likely the primary cause of the uptick in visits.- If an influencer is responsible for the positive media coverage, contact them to collaborate on more content.
If it seems like your SEO strategy is yielding positive results, you can use Google Search Console to check your brand’s search ranking in the country where the spike originated.
- You can analyze specific keywords driving your SEO traffic and use them to optimize website content.
Negative Reasons for Traffic Spikes
If you suspect bot activity:
- Analyze all website traffic data
- Look for surges in traffic coinciding with low engagement and high bounce rates
If the traffic spike resembles a spam attack:
- Search for high website traffic patterns on specific days with zero engagement metrics
Identifying and Eliminating Bot Activity
In contrast with press appearances and excellent marketing campaigns, bot traffic does not link to other forms of media.
Sometimes, bot traffic is part of a malicious attack to overwhelm and potentially disable a website.
It is possible to remove bot traffic but nearly impossible to exclude it entirely from your Google Analytics reports. Moreover, you must interpret your analytics correctly when you see a sudden spike in website traffic.
Otherwise, you may not notice bot traffic immediately, and this can cause damage to your campaign, ruining progress with a target audience by destroying customer trust. Ongoing bot activity may even lead to stolen content or sensitive data.
An SEO specialist can analyze your data to pinpoint the cause and provide valuable and highly time-sensitive next steps.
Act Against Negative Website Traffic Spikes
Whatever the negative reasons for a traffic spike, act immediately to prevent it from harming your website and brand reputation. Some of the best strategies include:
Increasing security measures on the website to block bots. Filtering tools are an excellent way to do this.
Reporting suspected fraudulent activities like spam and paid click fraud and taking extra precautions to block harmful IP addresses.
Rethinking your international SEO strategy by researching and refining keywords relevant to your target market. Consider geotargeting to ensure your SEO campaign does not go off track again.
Engage an SEO analyst team to thoroughly review and analyze your data. Not only are they able to expertly assess and correct your current situation, they can help you uncover other issues, provide valuable insights into corrective and preventive actions, and provide direction for the tools you should be using.
Prevent Negative Website Traffic Spikes With 321 Web Marketing
Experiencing sudden bursts of website traffic? While some spikes can be positive, unexpected surges can also be a sign of underlying issues impacting your SEO.
321 Web Marketing’s SEO specialists can analyze your Google Analytics data. We’ll identify the source of the traffic spikes, determine your website’s health, and advise you on your next steps.
Don’t let website traffic spikes be a mystery. Schedule a meeting with 321 Web Marketing today and unlock the insights you need for your website.
