5 Simple Ways To Increase Website Traffic
Once you’ve got that important job of ‘website for my business’ checked off your to-do list, the last thing you want is for no-one to find it. Sadly, the old saying of ‘build it and they will come’ does not apply to websites so we must do a little work to be sure we are found by potential customers.
The term SEO or search engine optimisation is now quite well known, and its importance often talked about in the business world, but what does it really mean and how can you make it work for your business?
There are two key areas to consider when assessing the SEO of your business website:
• How the website is built
• What you do after you launch
Whether you are building your own website or using a designer, you need to think about optimising your site to appear in online searches. A good designer should at the very least talk to you about this and offer you guidance on how to improve your SEO or who you can work with to optimise your site. Often designers will offer a level of SEO optimisation within their website design service, which can help take the stress off and give you a brilliant base to work from when building up your website’s popularity.
Ranking your website in an online search is no exact science but there are strategies you can use to give yourself a head start. At build stage, you or your designer should consider:
Using focussed keywords throughout your website copy
Don’t go nuts and keep any text on your site natural, but use words that people are likely to search when looking for you and your business
Accurate and specific descriptions for the back end of each page
Naming any images used on your site to reflect the purpose of the page they appear on
Using keyworks specific to the page, rather than ‘image 1’
Linking pages to each other throughout your site
The behind the scenes/backend of your website should be clean and tidy, well laid out and have a sensible page hierarchy.
No broken links
No pages that have no content
Disabling pages that are not used
Submitting your site to Google Search Console
If you are using Squarespace they have an excellent checklist here which runs through many of the items I’ve spoken about above and a few more. You should always discuss this with your designer as they will be able to offer you advice specific to your business and website.
Once you’ve finished up your work with your designer and your beautiful new website is live you must keep up the momentum and get your site out there to be found. A lot of the strategies above can seem overwhelming and you may rather hand this over to a professional, however there are some more manageable things you can do yourself to help your site out. It will take time for search engines like Google to find and rank your site, but the following steps will help you get there a bit quicker.
1. Share, share, share!
Sharing your website link on all your social media accounts, any business profiles, features or articles will start building up external links to your website – which Google loves. The more external sources that link into your site the more popular and current it will appear to a Google bot trawling the content. It will also simply start to get the word out that you and your business are now online with a great new site.
2. Add your business to Google My Business
Creating a profile for your business using the Google Business tool will help your business appear on local searching for your service. You can also optimise your profile on Google Business to link to your website, add contact methods, accept reviews and share posts. All of this will raise your search profile and make you easier to find.
3. Blogging!
The thought of writing a blog may make you groan but fresh, regular content being shared on your website it a brilliant way to increase the SEO of your website. Depending upon what your business is, you can use your blog in many ways to connect with your customers and clients, it doesn’t have to be what you would traditionally consider a blog. It could be:
• News page - to share more detail about new products or events
• Journal/Diary – share what you have been working on throughout the week or month.
• Case Studies – analyse a particular project to show potential customers how the process works
• Tutorials – show or explain to your audience how to do something associated with your business
Don’t forget to share the link to your blog post everywhere and often and be consistent!
4. Analyse your analytics
Use the analytics section of your website to track what content is popular with your website visitors, then use that information to create new content in that area. You can also track what keywords people have searched to end up on your website. This information can help you when writing copy for your site, as well as creating new blog posts.
5. Keep your site up to date
Make a point of checking through your website once a month to make sure all the information is still relevant and that there are no links or pages that are not working. Also check that your social media accounts and contact information are current, correct and linking properly.
These are just a few things that you can do to help your website be found, but they are manageable, and they will work. They key, as with everything, is consistency so once you start to share your site regularly and get into a routine of uploading new content you will find your traffic starts to grow considerably.
