How To Increase Your Website Traffic
Clients often ask me: why aren’t more people visiting my website?
Why am I not showing up in search results? These are common frustrations.
In my experience, the work necessary to increase a client’s website traffic falls in either one or both of two categories: technical issues and content issues.
Regarding technical issues, the problems can be as simple as having too large of photography files to more serious code and website errors. With these types of issues, you have to first understand if any technical errors exist. This can be done through a full SEO and digital audit with a reputable firm or a web developer or digital consultant you can trust.
When it comes to content, are you posting regularly? Is your content search engine friendly? Is your content shared? Even if you don’t want to allocate the time and money managing a blog can require, adding reviews and testimonials to your site is a great way to establish trust and establish brand alliances. Linking to other websites and partners might also encourage reciprocal backlinks in some cases — particularly if you’ve collaborated on a project.
Here are five ways to work towards increasing your website traffic:
Create Quality Content: It’s one thing to create content and it’s another to create quality content that individuals will want to read, engage with, and share. They are visiting your website for a reason, make it worth their while and even better, make it so they want to return.
Share Your Content: Sure, you can wait for search engines to index your content, but you can also give it a boost by sharing it on social networks like LinkedIn and include it in email marketing campaigns. Even if you don’t see a direct benefit, what do you have to lose in the few extra moments it takes to share it on additional networks?
Mobile-Friendly Test: How is your website faring on mobile? You can run the Google Mobile Friendly Test here. And, if you are wondering why this matters, please be sure to read all about Google’s Mobile-First Initiative (it’s now the default for all new domaines). Not only does mobile account for more than half of website traffic worldwide, the majority of users start their Google searches on mobile devices.
Check For Errors and Slow-Load Time: Does your website have broken or dead links? Are your pages and content loading properly, quickly, and on different browsers? If your website takes more than 2 seconds to load, visitors start to think it’s broken. In fact, after 3 seconds, 40% of visitors will leave.
Review The Overall Experience And Your Analytics: First, take a look at your data. What traffic are you missing? What are you not doing? Put yourself in a website visitor’s shoes for a moment. What experience are you offering them when they land on your website? Does it mirror that of your brand? Can they find what they are looking for quickly and easily? Find a way to have individuals who haven’t used your website to sit down and explore it with a fresh perspective. You might just want to sit down with them and see where they first click and how they interact with the pages. See what information they are able to extract by asking questions at the end of their experience. Could they find your contact information? Was it easy to find your services? Were the services you offer clear? Was there any aspect of the visit that was confusing? It’s important to be certain your messaging is straight-forward and that your website is easy to navigate. And, it never hurts to strive for beautiful overall website design.
Though there are many ways to work towards increasing a website’s traffic (both paid and unpaid), these are a few practices to support efforts to boost traffic and enhance the overall experience of a website.
