Traffic's Down? Don't Sack Your SEO Yet, FFS!

Your traffic's down, you're about to have a furious phone call with your SEO, and there's a decent chance the drop has got nothing to do with them. Twenty minutes and you'll know which it is.Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm walking you through exactly what to do when your traffic drops, before you pick up the phone to anyone. Because a lot of the time, traffic goes down for a reason that has nothing to do with anybody's SEO work, and somebody's about to get sacked over nothing. Sometimes it really is your SEO. Either way, you should know which one you're looking at before that conversation happens.Here's what I'm covering:— Why your search traffic is really three things multiplied together, and why only one of them is what most people mean by SEO— The 20-minute diagnosis in Google Search Console, in the order that saves you time, starting with the single most useful thing in the whole episode— Why you should ignore average position, and how to tell whether your loss is concentrated or spread— Cliff or slope, the Manual Actions report, and where Google tells you whether an update rolled out that week— The caveat (you'll just have to listen to find that out)I also give you a proper piece of homework. Not the "might do that one day" kind. The actual do-it-this-week kind. One sentence with the blanks filled in, and if you can write it, you'll walk into your next SEO conversation knowing more than the person who's meant to be explaining it to you.If you know someone who's currently panicking at a graph, or about to sack their SEO over some August stats, send them this. It might save somebody's job.Get found. Make money. Stop stressing. And check the calendar before you check the algorithm.Chapters:00:00 — Traffic's down. Is it your SEO?01:04 — Traffic is three things multiplied together01:57 — Cause 1: fewer people are searching03:03 — Cause 2: the results page changed shape04:04 — Cause 3: your rankings actually dropped04:39 — Cause 4: your measurement's broken05:37 — The 20-minute diagnosis05:53 — Step 1: compare year-on-year, not month-on-month06:31 — Step 2: clicks, impressions and position, separately06:56 — Step 3: ignore average position07:17 — Step 4: is the loss concentrated or spread?07:43 — Step 5: cliff or slope?08:08 — Step 6: did it happen to everybody?08:26 — The caveat08:48 — Homework: write one sentence09:53 — Sacked over some August statsLinks mentioned:Non-Wanky SEO Courses (the On-Page SEO Toolkit is now free): https://nonwankyseo.comEpisode 19, setting up Google Search Console: https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/episode/seo-ranking-starts-with-proper-website-structureGoogle Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-consoleGoogle Search Status Dashboard (where Google confirms ranking updates): https://status.search.google.com/Follow Nikki:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.socialMentioned in this episode:ICN Network