In this post we have gathered a mix of tested and proven techniques that can help you increase website traffic efficiently and without relying on a limited range of tools. There is a variety of strategies you can put into place and you will also learn how to optimise each source of traffic.
1. Adopt a mobile first approach
Australia is expected to count more than 19 million smartphone users by 2022 and we all know that mobile has long overtaken desktop as the first means of search. Google has acknowledged this trend years ago by introducing a mobile-first indexing algorithm that favours websites offering a mobile user-friendly experience.
Your business needs to start off by having a mobile first website or implement a responsive design. This will help creating an optimal experience for users across all devices and browsers and potential customers will be able to view your website from their smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.
When your mobile users outrank desktop users, you can consider building an app to make sure that all features are provided in a way that attracts the mobile user.
2. Optimise for voice search
The advanced features provided by smartphones have enabled users to gain access to information with less effort. More and more people are beginning to search with their voice and not their keyboard, and virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa have become a part of the way people search online.
So, if you want to increase traffic to your website, you need to make sure that your content targets the way people are looking for it. In other words, people speak differently from how they type, so you will have to create content that is adapted to the speaking language of users. Such content will incorporate long-tail keywords and entire sentences instead of short phrases, and your text should be able to directly answer to search queries.
3. Implement SEO techniques
SEO is one of the oldest methods you can use to increase traffic to your website. However, many businesses fail to use it properly because they still think that search engine optimisation consists of a series of tricks to fool search engines and are not aware of the fact that this field has evolved significantly. Here are the main areas you should look at:
- Meta data on your site
Meta data refers to the data describing other data. Its role is to make finding and working with certain information much easier. Webpage Meta data contains information about the content of the page and important keywords related to its content.
- Is your site’s navigation easy?
Proper website navigation will have a huge positive impact on your SEO performance. On the one hand, it allows your visitors to easily find what they need and on the other hand it helps search engines crawl your website content. Site navigation consists of the links within your website that connect your pages and it accounts for the relationships between pages.
- Site speed
A website that loads slowly will put off anybody trying to view your webpages and it will also damage your SEO as site speed is one of the signals used by Google’s algorithm to rank pages.
- Back linking
A back link is created when a webpage links to another website. These links are also called inbound links or incoming links and are important to SEO. They work like a vote of confidence from one site to another and this will show search engines that your content is valuable and should be surfaced on a SERP.
4. Video Marketing On YouTube
Video is the most popular method for consuming content and statistics show that video marketing offers approximately 66% more qualified leads per year and a 54% increase in brand awareness. YouTube is a Google product, so the largest search engine in the world often favours video results and displays multiple videos on the first page. Another advantage of being on YouTube is that you will also appear in YouTube search results and make your business more visible to YouTube users.
Don’t forget to optimise your videos before you publish them by adding a video description including your URL, adding your URL to video annotations, and including a spoken or written call to action in the video to determine users to click-through and visit your website.
5. Social Media
When you are looking to increase website traffic to your website, social media should make it to your list of measures as there are multiple tactics you can use to attain your objective:
- Filling in your profile and adding your website URL to it;
- Promoting your blog content on social media;
- Making your content easy to share;
- Posting when your audience is active;
- Focusing on sharing visual content;
- Engaging with your audience;
- Optimising your calls to action;
- Using paid social advertising.
6. Feature valuable content on your website
After multiple expert analyses, content marketers from all over the world have come to similar findings: the type of content that works the best is long-form content. Longer articles get more shares and backlinks than short posts. Of course, making sure that your article exceeds 1000 words is not enough; it also needs to provide valuable information to readers, entertain, and hit their sweet spot. Your content should help your audience learn how to solve a problem or how to get their job done with your product.
7. Online Directory Listings
Business directories represent an old and tested way to increase traffic to your website and they will continue to be used in spite of the popularity of social media and apps as they provide amazing benefits:
- Enhanced online presence;
- Improving local visibility;
- Being discovered easily;
- Increasing brand awareness;
- Helping with search engine optimisation;
- Supporting local communities.
Visual Marketing Australia has recently provided their support for the development and launch of a new local business directory. Considering the difficulties that Australian economy is encountering after the 2019-2020 bush fires and the Covid crisis, buying locally is more important than ever to ensure the recovery of our economy. Being included in our business directory means that together we help our local communities to thrive but also that you will be able to increase traffic to your website. Stay tuned for more information regarding our new local business directory that is coming soon.
The objective to increase web traffic should not be your last one though. Once users get to your website you also need to offer them a valuable experience that will convert them to paying customers. At VMA we offer a wide range of services, including online marketing, promotional products, web development, web hosting, CRM solution integrations, consulting, and others. For effective ways to increase traffic to your website and persuade your prospects to purchase from you, contact us today at 1300 158 708 or on our website.
