Now that you’ve been through all the hassle of putting your website together, you can sit back, relax, and watch your website traffic and engagement go through the roof… not exactly. Making a website is one thing, but making that website search engine optimal is a task in itself. Lucky for you, here are 10 simple tips and tricks to drive more traffic to your website.
Simple, Easy to Remember URL
www.nobodyintheirrightmindisevergoingtorememberthisurl.com/especiallyifit89p\]=lookslikethis38#29 is not the easiest URL to recall if someone is trying to find your website. You’re going to want a sweet and concise URL that has a nice ring to it so it’s difficult to forget. Also, you want to make the URLs for the different pages on your site easy to read.
https://
“http://” versus “https://” makes all the difference when SEO is involved. That extra “s” means that the website is secure and will keep customers’ information safe. Nobody wants to visit a website and be unsure if their personal information is compromised. Your website will also rank higher in Google’s algorithm and put you in a better position to receive more traffic to your website. It is always best to secure your website as soon as possible to ensure there’s no sketchy activity going on in the backend of your site.
Faster Web Speeds
The human attention span hovers around 8 seconds, and if your website takes more than a few seconds to load then you’re wasting those precious seconds that could be used navigating your site. SEO rankings will be more forgiving to websites with faster web speeds than slower ones. So when it comes to website speed; the faster the better.
Update Old Content
If you have any content that isn’t up to date, it will lower your ranking and produce less traffic to your website. An easy way to fix this is to update all of your old pages and content. This can simply be done in a variety of ways. Adding alt text to your photos will help Google rank you higher. Along with fixing the meta title and description that shows up when your website is searched. Once these are all up to date, your SEO rank should be higher than before.
Mobile Optimization
It’s always a huge turn off when you pull out your phone and get on a website that isn’t optimized for mobile. Nowadays, this is a necessity because of people’s reliance on mobile devices for everyday activities. If your site is optimized for mobile, then it will rank higher in SEO rankings because Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites.
UX to Improve Retention Rate
Improving your website’s user experience is mutually beneficial for you and your visitors. They receive an overall better experience on your website while you get priority on SEO rankings. To boost UX, simply make your website as clean and concise as possible. You want to aim to make it as simple as possible but lacking no creativity. Also, make sure it’s easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye so users will enjoy visiting your website and want to see it again.
Provide Links to Similar Websites
Adding external links to other websites in your content may sound counterintuitive. However, driving traffic to other websites, even your largest competitor, can be beneficial for you. All of those people that are brought to those websites leave a trail from where they came, and if they come from your site then you will gain more credibility and be perceived as a valuable source.
Utilize Keywords and Use Them Properly
Keywords are the most commonly known way to rank in SEO, but not everyone knows how to use them accordingly. For starters, more is not better. You’re better off only using 3-4 keywords and placing them properly, than sporadically throwing 10 keywords all over your homepage. The most important places to utilize keywords are in the url, the title, and in about the first 100 words of content. This will ensure you have a nice balance of keyword placement, but enough to rank. Plus, this will increase user experience because your website visitors aren’t being bombarded with a slew of keyword vomit all over the page.
Go Zombie Hunting
I’m only kind of joking. Pages on your website that don’t bring any traffic and basically just sit there for no reason are called “Zombie Pages”. These could be a major reason for your website not receiving the traffic it deserves. It is better to have less content that is high quality than more content that is low quality. Ideally, you would want a lot of high quality content but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Have Good Content
In the end, you’re not going to rank high on Google’s algorithm if you don’t have good content. Having content that people enjoy and want to engage in is the first step to driving traffic to your website, otherwise you’re driving those people to content they won’t appreciate. Plus, if you’re content is great then people are more willing to share it which will generate more traffic to your site. All this being said, the foundation for any successful company or brand is good content.
