How To Manage Stakeholders When An Algorithm Update Hits

In this edition of Ask An SEO, we address a familiar challenge for marketers:

How do you keep stakeholders from abandoning SEO when algorithm updates cause traffic drops?

This is an all-too-common issue that SEOs will encounter. They have strong plans in place, the buy-in from their leadership, and are making great strides in their organic performance.

When disaster strikes – or, more specifically, a Google algorithm update – all of that goodwill and great results are lost overnight.

What’s worse is, rather than doubling down and trying to recoup lost visibility through data-led SEO work, leadership starts questioning if there is a faster way.

Check The Cause Of The Decline In Traffic

First of all, I would say the most critical step to take when you see a drastic traffic drop is to check that it is definitely the result of an algorithm update.

It’s very easy to ascribe the blame to an update, when it could be caused by a myriad of things. The timing might be suspicious, but before anything, you need to rule out other causes.

Is It Definitely The Result Of The Algorithm Update?

This means checking if there have been any development rollouts, SEO fixes set live, or changes in the SERPs themselves recently. Make sure that the traffic loss is genuine, and not a missing Google Analytics 4 tag. Check that you aren’t seeing the same seasonal dip that you saw this time last year.

Essentially, you need to run down every other possible cause before concluding that it is definitely the result of the algorithm update.

This is important. If it’s not the algorithm update, the loss could be reversible.

Identify Exactly What Has Been Impacted

You are unlikely to have seen rankings and traffic decimated across your entire site. Instead, there are probably certain pages, or topics that you have seen a decline in.

Begin your investigation with an in-depth look into which areas of your site have been impacted.

Look at the webpages that were favored in place of yours. Have they got substantially different content? Are they more topically aligned to the searcher’s intent than yours? Or has the entire SERP changed to favor a different type of SERP feature, or content type?

Why Are These Specific Pages Affected?

What is the commonality between the pages on your site that have seen the rankings and traffic drops? Look for similarities in the templates used, or the technical features of the pages. Investigate if they are all suffering from slow-loading or poor-quality content. If you can spot the common thread between the affected pages, it will help you to identify what needs to be done to recover their rankings.

Is The Impact As Disastrous As It First Appears?

Also, ask yourself if the affected pages are actually important to your business. The impulse might be to remedy what’s gone wrong with them to recover their rankings, but is that the best use of your time? Sometimes, we jump to trying to fix the impact of an algorithm update when, actually, the work would be better spent further improving the pages that are still performing well, because they are the ones that actually make money. If the pages that have lost rankings and traffic were not high-converting ones in the first place, stop and assess. Are the issues they have symptomatic of a wider problem that might affect your revenue-driving pages? If not, maybe don’t worry too much about their visibility loss.

This is good context to have when speaking to your stakeholders about the algorithm impact. Yes, you may have seen traffic go down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will see a revenue loss alongside it.

Educate Stakeholders On The Fluctuations In SEO

SEO success is rarely linear. We’ve all seen the fluctuations on the Google Search Console graphs. Do your stakeholders know that, too?

Take time to educate them on how algorithm updates, seasonality, and changing user behavior can affect SEO traffic. Remind them that traffic is not the end goal of SEO; conversions are. Explain to them how algorithm updates are not the end of the world, and just mean there is room for further improvement.

The Best Time To Talk About Algorithm Updates

Of course, this is a lot easier to do before the algorithm update decimates your traffic.

Before you get to the point where panic is ensuing, make sure you have a good process in place to identify the impact of an algorithm update and explain it to your stakeholders. This means that you will take a methodical approach to diagnosing the issues, and not a reactive one.

Let your stakeholders know a reasonable timeframe for that analysis, and that they can’t expect answers on day one of the update announcement. Remind them that the algorithm updates are not stable as they first begin to roll out. They can cause temporary fluctuations that may resolve. You need time and space to consider the cause and remedies of any suspected algorithm update generated traffic loss.

If you have seen this type of impact before, it would be prudent to show your stakeholders where recovery has happened and how. Help them to see that now is the time for further SEO investment, not less.

Reframe The Conversation Back To Long-Term Strategy

There is a very understandable tendency for SEOs to panic in the wake of an algorithm update and try to make quick changes to revert the traffic loss. This isn’t a good idea.

Instead, you need to look at your overarching SEO strategy and locate changes that might have a positive impact over time. For example, if you know that you have a problem with low-quality and duplicate content on your site that you had intended to fix through your SEO strategy, don’t abandon that plan now. Chances are, working to improve the quality of your content on the site will help with regaining that lost traffic.

Resist The Urge To Make Impulsive Changes And Instead Be Methodical About Your Recovery Plans

Don’t throw away your existing plans. You may need to modify them to address specific areas of the site that have been impacted negatively by the update. Carry out intensive investigations into exactly what has happened and to which keywords/topics/pages on your site. Using this information, you can refine your existing strategy.

Any work that is carried out without much thought to the long-term impacts will be unlikely to stand the test of time. You may see a temporary boost, which will placate your stakeholders for a period, but that traffic growth may only be short-lived. For example, buying links to point to the areas of the site most negatively affected by the algorithm update might give you the boost in authority needed to see rankings recover. Over time, though, they are unlikely to carry the same weight, and at worst, may see you further penalized in future algorithm updates or through manual actions.

In Summary

The best time to talk to your stakeholders about the steps to resolve a negative impact from an algorithm update is before it happens. Don’t wait until disaster strikes before communicating your investigation and recovery plans. Instead, let them know ahead of time what to expect and why it isn’t worth a panicked and reactive response.

If you do find your site on the receiving end of a ferocious algorithm update, then take a deep breath. Let your analytical head prevail. Spend time assessing the breadth and depth of the damage, and formulate a plan that yields dividends for the long-term and not just to placate a worried leadership team.

SEO is about the long game. Don’t let your stakeholders lose their nerve just because an algorithm update has happened.

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal