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Are you a new business looking for ways to attract visitors to your website? Or perhaps your website is simply no longer grabbing the attention like it used to. Not to worry! It won’t happen overnight but there are many things you can do to help your website drive traffic. While it’s good to cover all bases it’s important to start at the beginning and understand the basics, which is why we’ve divided the subject into three core structures.
Understanding SEO
SEO is the process designed to enhance the position of a web page from search results. SEO’s use bot crawlers, which work by indexing the website information found online. The information is automatically processed and categorised accordingly, displaying sites in an order of relevance established by the bot.
Many SEO-boosting strategies have been established over the years, however there is a staple checklist every business should follow:
- Improve website speed- Statistics show that the speed of your website has a direct affect on how high your site ranks on a search engines page. The better your loading speed, the higher you climb on the main page. Make sure to optimise image formats, remove irrelevant 3rd party scripts, update site plugins, and perform general site maintenance on a regular basis. It can do wonders for speeding up a website.
- Improve site visit duration- The amount of time spent on your website by existing visitors plays a major role in how much a search engine will ‘like’ your website and thus how well it will appear in search results. If your website is unattractive or too hard to navigate it can significantly lower the visit duration. Some good methods for boosting visit durations are embedding videos within your home page, including more interactive site features, and improving readability.
- Improve your keywords- Keywords help to categorise your content and bring relevant traffic to your website. When used correctly, they improve visibility and suggest your website to target audiences searching within a pertinent field. Do your research and establish what type of client you would like to visit your site, your strategy, and the targeting keywords that will help to get them there.
Providing Quality Content
It may seem obvious to include content on the list of must haves, however the downfall of many websites is simply lack of quality content. No, we’re not just talking about the stuff that is permanently embedded in your website, we’re talking about fresh, regular, and quality content that can link back to your page. Whether it’s a weekly blog, a newsletter or podcast every piece of content you put out should have a link bringing the reader back to your site. The more site links lead back to you- the stronger the rankings of your website. Finally, don’t forget about video formatting! As mentioned earlier, embedding videos in your website can increase the duration of the site visit, but that’s not the only thing making them beneficial. Video format has statistically proven to have higher information retention than written format, which is why video marketing has become so successful among businesses. Don’t cut out written content completely but balance it out with other formats to provide alternative ways of tuning in!
Social Media Marketing
You most likely already have an account or two with the top social media platforms, but are you using them right? It’s not just as simple as posting every now and then. It’s important to keep the profiles alive, active, and regular and crack down the best places to reach your target audience. Becoming part of online communities, lists and pages can be a great way of gaining credibility as well as extending reach to preestablished and categorised groups. It also allows for interactions and gives you the opportunity to engage with your audiences.
There are many ways in which you can use social media to your advantage, from hashtagging to sharing content linking back to your page, it’s one of the best, free forms of advertising available. You don’t need to join them all but establishing where your audience hangs out online should give you a good idea as to where you too should be.
If you’d like to find out more about driving traffic to your website or would like to discuss outsourcing those tasks, get in touch. We would love to answer any of your questions and discuss your needs!
makeithappen.. E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com T: 01903 688789