In a fast changing global market driven by technology and evolving algorithm, most brands are struggling to find ways to increase website traffic so they can gain new customers, boost sales and pivot their business to make profits.
Are you one of these brands?
For most small businesses like yours, getting improved search visibility is becoming very difficult after the recent updates, yet the digital space is getting increasingly competitive.
A number of brands have found their way to stay on top of the search engine results page despite the changes. After working with some of these brands to build visibility using search engine optimization and other strategies, I’ll be sharing with you some of the secret strategies you can use to increase website traffic for your business.
Study your Competition
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Who are your competition and what exactly are they doing differently?
You’ll be shocked to find that most other brands getting ahead of you in your industry are doing different things that could also work for you, if you were to try them with your business.
This is an age long practice used by businesses to understand where the market is going.
You won’t know exactly what is going on in your industry until you get to research the market and take steps to understudy your competition and find out exactly what they are doing to increase website traffic.
Yes.
Find out the top websites in your industry. Identify the kind of content they are publishing on their blogs to have a feel of what your audience is likely looking to get from your brand.
Use SEO tools like Ubersuggest etc. to analyze their content so you can identify the top performing keywords, backlinks etc.
As soon as you’ve figured this out, it’s now time to use this information to optimize your content so you can get the most in terms of visibility.
Use the Right Keywords
One of the most important steps to increase website traffic is to identify and use the right keywords.
So at this point, you want to analyse your business to identify your services or products, your target audience and also the important search phrases they use in reaching businesses like yours online.
Again, search engine optimization tools like Ubersuggest, Semrush, Google Keywords Tool etc. can come in very useful for this research.
From identifying the top ranking keywords, to difficulty levels and overall competitiveness, these SEO tools will give you an overview of what keywords you should be prioritizing to rank for with your content.
Now, remember in step one I mentioned that you should study your competition to understand what they are doing? Well, one of the purpose of researching your key competition is to find out their key words.
So now; using the results of your previous research in step one, identify the top keywords that these websites are ranking for. Does it tally with the ones you plan to rank on your website?
Some of those keywords will most likely be similar to yours but others will not. Group all the keywords separately, both the ones from your audience interest research and the ones from your competitor request.
Use these keywords to create a content strategy that covers potential content topics that aligns with the interest of your target audience and your brand goals yet very distinct enough to get recognized on the search engine.
Leverage On-Page SEO
On- Page SEO is simply a set of search engine strategies, aimed at optimizing all the pages on your website for improved visibility.
It is one of the top SEO strategies to increase website traffic used by brands across different industries.
Since you’ve already identified the top search key words for your industry and target audience, it’s time to get over and use these key words to optimize your website pages.
Starting with your Home Page, optimize the landing page on your website with all necessary target keywords relevant to your business at specific sections of the home page.
When you’re done with the home page, head over to the other specific website page listing out different sections of your website. Use relevant keywords on those pages as well.
While doing this, pay attention to the page title, meta titles and subtitles, meta description etc. be sure that each of these sections are not just optimized for the search engine with relevant keywords, they are also written in the most captivating way to convert your audience more easily.
Alongside your web pages, you want to consider optimizing your website content if you already have existing content on the website. Where you don’t have any blog posts, you can skip this part.
As part of your on-page SEO optimization, make sure your website is mobile friendly, fast loading and all set up to meet the needs of your target audience with ease.
Use Local SEO & Citations
Local search engine optimization are specific strategies you’ll use to optimize your website for better visibility in your locality or in a specific geographical area.
For small businesses – especially physical brands targeted at customers in specific geographic areas, local SEO is one of your surest ways to increase website traffic and drive massive visibility in your locality.
To set up your local SEO, you want to start with optimizing for locality, using targeted keywords relevant to audiences in that geographical area on your web pages.
As soon as this is done, you have to go ahead and create digital citations for your websites on local directories in that particular geographical location.
This is very important in creating and populating your digital footprints in your target locality. Also, consider using platforms like Google My Business among other local directories.
To further extend your local search engine optimizations, consider using target locality based keywords as part of your content strategy.
Outside increasing your chances at content visibility in the specific area, this can also enhance your visibility internationally.
Build Relevant Links
Now, backlinks are a great way to increase website traffic however, you don’t have to get all kinds of backlinks for your website.
After the recent algorithm updates, getting relevant and high quality backlinks for websites is not only imperative, it is non-negotiable.
So before getting your backlinks you want to verify your sources. Are these links from trustworthy websites, or spammy and irrelevant websites?
Getting links to your websites from the former can lead to serious consequences for your platform so you have to avoid it by all means.
To get the best links to your website, be very intentional about link building. Don’t just get links from nay website.
Head over to your research on step one, identify the key websites with backlinks to your competing websites and find a way to get your own links from that websites using strategies like guest posting among others.
Alongside backlinks, you also have to leverage internal link building to improve your website indexing, crawl-ability and overall website visibility.
Revamp your Social Media
With recent updates from the search engines, traffic diversification has once again become a great strategy to increase website traffic.
Instead of aiming to attract all your traffic from the search engine alone, consider getting on the top social media platforms with the highest number of your target audience.
Create social media handles for your brand on those platforms. Set up and optimize the handle with your brand information and then get to create and post content from there.
At interval, share links from blog posts on your website to your social media platforms. This will get viewers heading over to your website after clicking the links.
Create a social media content strategy that prioritizes creating value for your audience while also promoting your brand.
Done well, this strategy will not only boost traffic to your website, it will build your trust, credibility and of course, get you a handful of new customers.
Get on Strategic Content Marketing
Strategic content marketing is focused on creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to a specified audience consistently, to get specific outcomes.
It is a great strategy to increase website traffic from scratch, even if you’re just starting out as it uses different content marketing methods.
Strategic content marketing starts with identifying your business goals, finding the kind of audience that can get you to achieve those goals and then creating the kind of content that meets their needs to get them over to your website.
Most businesses I’ve worked with in the past have used this as one of their top shot strategy to boost website visits and overall visibility.
As a small business, you can leverage this to get your own brand in front of your waiting target audience.
You want to start this with identifying your audience. After that, find out what matters to them, how this relates to your business and then find ways to create the content that takes care of these things.
As part of strategic content marketing, use storytelling to create compelling content that will get your audience to take specific actions. Also, optimize each piece of content you create with target search phrases and keywords.
This go a long way in boosting the performance of your content.
Final Words
There are a number of other search engine optimizations strategies you could use boost your website traffic but getting started with these strategies can get you to reach your traffic goals in a very short period.
Alongside all of this, you want to pay attention to current trends, evaluate your outcomes and of course, make effort to continue to evolve your strategies to fit in with your needs and realities.
Remember, our SEO experts can always walk you through all of this so you don’t get to do it alone. Contact us here.
Now it’s your turn. What are your most important strategies when it comes to getting website visibility using SEO? Drop your comments below.
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