The Organic Traffic Cliff: A Wake-Up Call for Founders Betting on One Channel

·

22 months of organic shut down for the main agency website and a couple more, until this HCU reversal from Sep 2023 kicked in a few weeks back.

No matter how much of a buffer you have, if your core revenue pipeline drops by 90% for nearly 2 years, you’re out of business, period.

Diversification is pretty critical here. What seemed as the Boogeyman to younger directors and founders as “impossible to happen” has happened many times before, and not just with HCU here – organic down, first party more competitive, AI taking over roles, vibe coding, landing page builders, you name it.

View Svetlana Stankovic’s graphic link

Svetlana StankovicSvetlana Stankovic   • 2ndPremium • 2ndOrganic Growth Lead | SEO, GenAI, CRO | Mentor for Women in TechOrganic Growth Lead | SEO, GenAI, CRO | Mentor for Women in Tech1w • Edited • 1 week ago • Edited • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedInFollow

This Google Core Update was big! 💥

And it led to some great recoveries for websites who got hit with 2023 Helpful Content System changes. It seems that Google decided to hear our complains about being unfair when it comes to punishing small businesses, especially content creators and niche magazines, because many of them got large percentage of their rankings back.

This update was about:

– people-first content
– reputation and trust
– enabling smaller websites to be more competitive
– giving advantage to quality, naturally written content vs. keywords and heavy optimizations (Google is doing it for a long time, but this update brought quality, non-optimized and naturally written content to the surface)
– having better understanding of user intent, topical depth, semantical correlations and easy-to-follow structures
– rewarded UGC, communities and good UX
– and it enabled recovered websites to also appear back in AIO (and the other way around)

Many websites who were previously hit by HCU driven updates unfortunately closed their businesses. The ones who pulled through and improved their content, UX and worked on regaining Google‘s trust can now finally feel some positive Impact.

But is it too late? Some websites did indeed receive big hits during this update, too. Will it take them another two years to recover? Google has promised more frequent core updates, and we are still hoping for that to come true. Let‘s see.

chart

Part of:

The Author

Mario Peshev is a 5x CEO and operator, founder of DevriX and Growth Shuttle, global value creation advisor, angel investor, and author of “MBA Disrupted.”

His original background in engineering rode the wave of IT entrepreneurship in the last 25 years, from product and service entrepreneurship through acquiring and selling businesses, to investing in global startups like beehiiv, doola, the Stacked Marketer, Alcatraz, SeedBlink.

Peshev spent over 10,000 hours in consulting and training contracts for mid-market and enterprise organizations like VMware, SAP, Software AG, CERN, Saudi Aramco since 2006. His books and guides are referenced in over 50 universities in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Learn More

Follow Mario on social:

Latest Editions:

Latest Answers:

+

Want More? Join The Growth Blueprint

Join thousands of driven professionals and let’s talk about the future of business today. From business tactics aligned to macroeconomics to macro strategies for micro success. Gain an edge in the fast-paced digital landscape with curated insights and expert advice.

6,600+ subscribers

Our dedicated audience is constantly growing and engaging

Learn what’s happening in the space

Stay updated on the latest innovations and breakthroughs

Trusted by major brands

Some of our subscribers work in places like CERN, Google, Nestle, etc.

The Growth Blueprint

Let me crunch the numbers and forecast global trends, so you don’t have to

See Also