Let’s face it: there’s no way there will ever be enough traffic on your website. It’s not a bad thing, actually. We always strive for more, so even if your traffic is already decent, there’s a huge chance that you still want to improve.
How can you do so? Sometimes it seems that purchasing traffic is the best option as it requires little effort from you. However, that’s largely not the case.
A report by Seo Tribunal shows that from 39% of the total global e-commerce traffic coming from search, only 4% is paid search. The other 35% is organic traffic.
WHAT IS ORGANIC TRAFFIC?
Organic traffic is the kind where someone ends up on your website by clicking on its listing in Google search results after typing in a search query.
Organic traffic is essential because the people most likely to purposefully click on your website are probably those looking to become clients or customers. Furthermore, even if you are a blogger, this could benefit you as well. In this case, users will be seeing higher CPC (cost-per-click) AdSense ads because they will be based around their search query.
Another perk of building organic traffic is that it’s more sustainable in the long-run. Yes, you get quick results when you purchase traffic, but these results usually won’t last too long. The moment you stop investing in them, the effect will cease.
Organic traffic, on the other hand, is cheaper and vastly more worthwhile in the long-term. Sure, it isn’t free and still requires time and money, but these investments will guarantee long-lasting results. Moreover, the organic traffic strategy will continue working even if you decide to take a short break from supporting it.
Therefore, if you want to increase your website’s traffic and make the results last, you should consider investing in an organic traffic strategy. Here are a few useful tips that will help you do so.
1: REMEMBER, THE AUDIENCE ALWAYS COMES FIRST
Quality content always plays a huge role in traffic growth. In fact, MarketingSherpa named it the key factor in any good SEO strategy, stating that improvements in the quality of content could increase blog traffic by as much as 2,000%.
But what does quality content mean? Generally speaking, it’s the content that resonates with your target audience and answers the questions they have; it’s content that has tangible value. This means the audience should be your top priority. You need to identify the keywords they use in search queries and address them. Without doing so, SEO would be useless.
Choosing the right topics is just half of the deal, though. You need to make sure that the content itself is well-written or designed, not spammy, and provides some benefit to the audience.
2: DON’T FORGET THE DETAILS
If you focus on crafting high-quality content for your website, this will naturally improve your SEO and therefore your traffic, even if a bit. However, this doesn’t mean your work is over.
One of the simplest things you can do right now is to make sure that your website isn’t simply indexable by search engines, but also easily crawlable by Google bots. Always give attention to composing clean URLs, keyword-rich meta data, and compelling descriptions for your posts or webpages. This will all contribute to SEO gains as well. The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress can help you achieve this; however, simply adding it to your site won’t be enough: you’ll still need to work on each page in turn.
3: INCLUDE LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS
Several years ago, keyword stuffing seemed to be a valid SEO strategy. Lucky for us, those days are long gone. In fact, nowadays Google will penalise websites that include a high frequency of similar keywords in their content, especially if it is forced, spammy, and hard to read.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are still good for SEO and for your audience. They don’t affect the quality of the content (when used correctly), and help the audience find what they are looking for.
Keep in mind that Google is smart enough to group individual keywords into certain topics and subtopics. Therefore, a single page can rank for hundreds or even thousands of long-tail keywords. However, this will only work right if your content is optimised around a topic, instead of a single keyword, and is relevant and well-researched.
4: USE LINKS ACTIVELY
There are two types of links: internal links, and external. Both are great for SEO, assuming you use them shrewdly.
External links are the ones that lead to blogs and resources located outside your domain. They could make your content more credible (if you include links to statistics, for instance) and they can help you to establish better relationships with industry experts. People generally appreciate when you link back to their content, and may even return the favour.
Internal links are the ones that lead visitors to other parts of your site: various posts, graphics, home page, contact information, etc. It’s always good to include a couple of them in your content, pointing the reader’s attention to other relevant sources of information, and therefore influencing them to stay on your website longer. This of course affects SEO and traffic indirectly by improving bounce rate and session time.
However, be careful here: a couple of links are okay, but having too many internal links could also make it look spammy. Try to strike a balance here, mixing internal links with external ones organically.
5: ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO LINK BACK TO YOU
Incoming links to your website are generally good for SEO. How can you get them? The first option is to ask your audience, clients, friends, industry experts, and fellow bloggers to link to your site. Just make sure to check the sources that link back to you; spammy links coming from low-reputation sites or “bad neighbourhoods” could actually do more harm than good, damaging your SEO.
The second option is to invest time in guest blogging. This strategy is definitely more energy and resource-consuming, but it allows you to pick the websites you want to link back to you. Contact the editors or the owners of these sites to ask if you could write a blog post for them. If you offer a high-quality piece, you may get backlinks in return, either in the content itself or in the form of a short bio that links to your main blog or website.
6: UPDATE REGULARLY
Regular updates are good for your audience, for SEO, and for traffic. Your audience likes to know when they can expect new content from you, and Google likes it as well. The optimal posting frequency depends a lot on the age of your blog, and while in some cases it might not affect traffic dramatically, it’ll definitely be good in the long-run.
Keep in mind though; frequency shouldn’t gain priority over quality. It’s always better to update less often but keep your content high-quality and related to your niche.
7: BUILD YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Building a social media presence can help make your business, brand, or blog more visible; it can improve traffic, increase the number of shares, and generally get the good word out. Definitely consider posting your content to relevant social channels, and perhaps consider crafting some content specifically for these platforms.
Tip: Be sure to add social media share buttons to your site. This way, it’s easier for readers to share content of yours that they like. And of course, make sure that your content is worth sharing.
8: DON’T FOLLOW TRAFFIC ADVICE
There are plenty of tips and tricks to increase traffic. Most of them are indeed very effective in the long-run. However, some of these tips and tricks are general advice, while others work best for certain niches and in certain scenarios.
Therefore, always be sure to test every innovation you implement. Track the metrics to see whether your new strategy boosts traffic or improves PageRank at all, then adjust it if you don’t see results (over time). Experiment, monitor, and definitely avoid the unethical ways of driving more traffic to your website—and you will succeed.
