10 proven ways to increase traffic to your website
Lack of traffic is one of the most common challenges we experience for websites. But there are many ways to increase traffic to a website. Here are 10 proven ways to increase traffic to your website.
10 proven ways to increase traffic to your website
1. Focus on ‘long tail’ keywords
Long tail keywords are phrases which can be very specific to your business. For example, if you provide office cleaning and janitorial service in Toronto, trying to target ‘cleaning Toronto’ within your site content will have high competition levels from other providers, and achieving a high rank for this keyword will be difficult (and costly!).
Instead, aim for long tail keywords that relate to a specific product or product range, e.g ‘office cleaning service in Toronto’. This is more likely to target searchers who are using specific search terms to find the exact service they need. These specific, or niche, long tail keywords tend to have low competition levels and are therefore easier for your business to gain a high SERP with.
2. Consistent Content
If you’ve decided you want to dedicate time to your company blog, then it’s vital to make sure you are able to do this consistently. If you have written 10 blogs then don’t publish these all at once; instead, stagger them regularly across several weeks. Google rewards content that is fresh and provides useful information for search engine users. Plus, regular blogs/articles positions you as a credible resource and enhances the authority of your website.
3. Quantity vs. Quality Content
Many bloggers and content writers believe that publishing at least 2000+ word articles every day is a huge achievement. And, if that’s your sole aim, then it is a huge achievement. However, you need to consider who you are writing for and why you are creating content.
For most businesses, the answer to this will be that they are writing for their customers (existing or potential) in order to create a greater awareness about their expertise, products or services. So if your 5,000 word article doesn’t fulfill these needs, then sadly it’s been a waste of time.
Google is always going to remain committed to providing the best experience that it possibly can for users, and if your content is deemed as ‘low quality’ by Google, then its ranking will drop as they will see it as being of no use to their search engine users.
4. Ethical Link Building
There has been a lot of chatter about link building following Google’s crackdown on the spammy links which previously dominated SEO. Now Google recommends a more ethical approach to promoting your website. Instead, gain external links from genuine websites that have a related interest to your own business and if they have a higher or equal Page Rank to your own business – even better. Ask your business partners, clients, and press to link to your site using keywords that your business is targeting.
You can also assist in effective link building without the help of any other sites, simply by building internal links within your own website. If you are creating content about a specific aspect of your business, then link to the related page(s) within your site. This shows Google that what you are talking about is relevant and can encourage visitors further into your site.
5. Pay respect to search engine webmaster guideline
Some (silly) people think that they are clever enough to outsmart Google. They’re not. Though underhand tactics can gain momentum for a site, this is always for the short term. Google inevitably finds out, punishes your site and you end up in a far worse position than you were in initially. Dedicating time and planning to a well thought out SEO Strategy will see your business reap the rewards in the long term.
6. Optimize for your website users not for search engine
To do everything you possibly can to improve your website’s SEO, optimisation needs to be a priority when you create, edit or update any of your content. This starts by writing meta tags for each page of your site which gives search engines a clear description of the content on each page. The most important meta tags are meta titles and meta descriptions.
Meta titles
The meta title provides a short description for each page which tells the search engine about the content of the page – this should contain keywords as near as possible to the start of the descriptions.
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are for search engines too, but they also provide info to users about the content within each page. This is your chance to entice search engine users to click through and browse the services or products that you have to offer.
7. Try to Lower your bounce rate
As usability is at the heart of Google’s SEO practices, their algorithms monitor how long users stay on a site – widely known as a website’s ‘bounce rate’. A high bounce rate indicates that the page didn’t contain content that was relevant to the user, or that the page offered a poor user experience. You should continue to strive to keep your website’s bounce rate as low as possible by identifying factors which could be causing your users to leave your site.
8. Make the most of Google’s Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner provides a fantastic starting point for businesses that want to find out which keywords they should try to rank well for. Google’s Keyword Planner was originally created for their AdWords users, but you can still use it without paying to advertise.
Simply type in some key phrases that you think your customers will use to try to find you. Google’s Keyword Planner will deliver a list which details the number of monthly searches for these terms, as well as the competition level for each. This helps businesses to identify the most beneficial keywords to target throughout their content.
9. Find and Get involved in your online community
Providing useful content to your online customers cements your authority within your company’s niche. Invite your online audience to ask questions and provide feedback to gauge opinions about the products that you deliver. Not only does this give you an insight into what your potential customers think and what they want, it also gives your website authority within Google rankings as you are providing what users are looking for – useful content.
10. Use social media
So you are happy that your site is well optimized and ticks all of Google’s boxes; but what about social media? If you still think that social media is a gimmick that your business does not need, you’re wrong. In a study conducted by Searchmetrics, seven social media activities ranked in the top eight factors that contributed towards SEO – particularly Google Plus.
Those are the 10 proven ways to increase traffic to your website we put together. Now, you need to create an SEO strategy.
Invest time in creating an seo strategy that helps you to connect with your customers socially, and encourages them to interact with you this way.
A five steps SEO Strategy can be:
Step 1: Define Target Keywords
Step 2: Define Competitors, Finding Gaps and Opportunities
Step 3: Spying On Competitors, Customized SEO Strategy & Implement
Step 4: Stay Current on SEO News & Practices
Step 5: Measure and Track Your SEO Success
If your looking to increase traffic to your Adsense blog, then read this: 6 Google AdSense Tips to Increase Earnings
Also check out: 18 Ways To Optimize Your Website For More Traffic and Higher Conversions
For those looking for traffic generation tools, check out: Free traffic generator to increase AdSense earnings on website