Did you know that there are more than 2 billion websites that are spread across the web, 400 million of which are producing content? Beyond that, every few minutes, thousands and thousands of websites will be created.
There’s no doubting that websites are popular, but there’s also no understating that having a website among so many others can make it hard to compete. If you’ve created a website or are thinking about creating one, you’ve more than likely asked yourself the question, “How to get more traffic to my website?”
This is one of the most difficult tasks bloggers, companies, and anyone else who has a website has to face. Your website might have some of the best content on the internet, but if no one gets to see it, your website is never going to blossom. Many people get discouraged after seeing no improvements in their website traffic and give up.
However, giving up is not an option if you really want to succeed. It’s not impossible to increase website hits, especially if you know the different ways you can increase website traffic. Fortunately, this article will teach you all about where to start.
How to Get More Traffic to My Website
If you’re working for yourself and just started your own business, website traffic is more than just metrics. It can be your way of life. For entrepreneurs, a website is not just a website, but more like a portfolio or a storefront for your brand.
In our modern world, instead of opening a shop on a street corner, you open up a website instead. Because of this, everything about your website needs to be next to perfect. This includes everything from how the website looks to how it functions.
Once you have all this together, your website is considered presentable to visitors. Then, hopefully, and with time, these visitors will add up and eventually become interested enough in your brand to buy your products or your services.
Voila! Your website is a success.
But it’s not always so easy or so linear. Many entrepreneurs continue to have trouble bringing traffic to their website even if their website seems to appear great. If you’ve been in this situation, you might be wondering what you’re doing wrong and what your website might be lacking.
Not only is it stressful to watch as your website is buried under more successful websites, but you’re also losing out on potential customers. The problem might not be that your website is lacking anything. Instead, it might be that you are not taking advantage of a few extra opportunities that can increase website traffic.
So, where should you start if you’re unsure what your website’s problem is? The answer involves going back to the basics: web design. You might be thinking, “But my web design is already in great shape.”
In order to err on the side of caution, let’s take a closer look at how good web design can get more website traffic.
Why Is Web Design Important for Increasing Website Traffic
You’ve likely found yourself searching for a topic on the internet and clicked on a website that looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2009. More often than not, people click away from these outdated-looking sites as quickly as they can. Not only are these websites not appealing to look at, but such websites give the impression that their content might not be recent either.
You do not want this to be the case when it comes to your website. If you’ve had your website for several years, the website design you went with when you first started is not going to be popular today, no matter how good it might have been at the time. If you want some advice when it comes to increasing and keeping website traffic, remember that it’s always necessary to change with the times.
It’s also important to remember that web design is not just colors and designs. It’s also the way your website is structured as well as ease of navigation. Your website visitors are not going to be enchanted with your brand if they can’t find their way to the content they’re looking for.
If you found yourself struggling with a website’s design, wouldn’t you click away as well? But before we take a deeper look at website structure, let’s examine what a modern website should look like.
Website Design for Your Website’s First Impression
In short, if your website does not give your viewers a good impression, they’re not going to be interested in what your site has to offer and they won’t be returning. On the other hand, if your website gives a good impression, your visitors may take some time to explore your website and, in some cases, you may even gain a customer.
The most important visual elements of your website are colors, fonts, layouts, logo design, and images. If you’re an amateur web designer, you might have the bad habit of putting a little too much of everything into your website. For example, too many conflicting colors, hard-to-read font, and too many images are all red flags for websites.
Working with professional web design services can help you avoid these mistakes. Professionals will know what colors are the most modern and the most stylish. They will also know how to lay out the website properly so it doesn’t feel too spaced out but also doesn’t feel too cramped.
Professionals also know how to balance text with images and other designs. Too many images can distract away from your website’s message while, on the other hand, big blocks of text without images to separate them can be intimidating to many visitors.
Professionals can make sure that your website looks unique when compared to other websites in your niche. Another benefit of working with professionals is that they can take the weight of web design off your shoulders so you can focus on other aspects of increasing traffic to your website.
The Importance of Functional Web Design
As mentioned before, web design is not all about visuals. It also involves your website’s speed, navigation, and user interaction. If someone clicks on your website and finds it slower than others, that someone isn’t going to wait around when there are plenty of faster websites to choose from.
Professional web design services can also help you in this aspect. By making your website fast, easy to navigate, and engaging, it will be hard for people to click away. By leaving the majority of your visitors with a good impression of your website at first glance, you will see an increase in traffic sooner than later.
If you’ve got your web design under control, you’re still not out of the woods if you want serious increases in traffic. The next most important aspect of a successful website is SEO.
The Importance of SEO for Your Website
You likely already know how important SEO is for websites, but you may not know the different ways SEO can be used to get more website traffic. If you want good website SEO advice, then remember how backlinks, keyword tracking, and competitor analysis are all important.
To understand the power of SEO, let’s take a closer look at what backlinks can do for you.
Backlinking for Your Website
Backlinks are links that connect a website with your website’s content. While this is obviously great to bring new visitors to your website, it has a larger benefit: search engines like Google determine how relevant your website is based on your backlinks.
Since links to your content will be shown on another website, search engines assume that your website is reliable and worth a look. Because of this, your website’s ranking might increase because of a few backlinks. In some cases, websites can rank on a search engine’s first page.
There’s no need to explain the increase of traffic you might see if your website reaches the first page. So, where should you get started with backlinking? Most backlinking strategies start with making sure your website has high-quality and consistent content as well as content that people want to share.
Very common types of content following these requirements include infographics, lists, videos, and how-to articles. Not only are these articles catchy at first glance, but they often keep people reading until the end and make them want to share with their friends, family, and colleagues.
Backlinking is not the only SEO trick that you can try to increase your website’s traffic. Another big consideration is keyword tracking and optimization.
How the Right Keywords Can Make a Difference
No digital marketing guide is complete without discussing the importance of keywords. Keywords are what your potential customers will search for if they want to find something on the internet. For example, keywords like, “chocolate chip cookie recipe” might have a huge search volume while other keywords such as, “Industrial pipe sealant” might have a very low search volume.
This does not mean keywords with low search volumes are hopeless. It all comes down to keyword optimization and tracking. By researching the most popular keywords for your industry, no matter what you’re marketing, you will see an increase in traffic.
Remember not just to focus on search volume but also cost per click, competitivity, and other metrics. The right keywords can make all the difference when it comes to your website ranking on Google’s first page or twentieth page.
Keyword tracking is just as important as optimization. Once you have your best keywords chosen for your website and articles, you need to make sure that those keywords continue to perform well. Keyword tracking also involves the monitoring of your website’s SEO ranking based on the keywords you’re using.
For example, if you’re keywords are no longer doing as well as they used to, your search engine rankings could drop very quickly. In order to avoid this, keep a close eye on your keywords and change them if they fluctuate in popularity too much or become very unpopular all of a sudden.
By keeping an eye on your keywords, you can be confident that your website’s ranking will remain stable. However, let’s not forget about one thing that could get in the way of your website’s success: competitors.
Understanding Competitor Analysis
Every website will have a competitor and if you don’t know who your competitors are, you’d better find out fast. Knowing your competitors is important because they could easily steal customers out from under your nose if you’re not paying attention.
Knowing who your competitors are also gives you the opportunity to try and do better than them when it comes to digital marketing and increasing website traffic. This is where competitor analysis can help.
By analyzing your competitors either on your own or with the help of professionals, you can see what your competitors are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. You can even take a closer look at reviews for your competitors’ products or services. This can help give you ideas of what not to do and where you can improve.
The worst thing you can do for your website is ignore your competitors and let them surpass you. If this happens, people searching on Google will end up finding and clicking on your competitors’ websites before they have the chance to find yours.
The Many Ways to Increase Website Traffic
By the end of this article, you should no longer be wondering, “How to get more traffic to my website?” Instead, you know about the different ways you can increase your website’s traffic. These ways include website design and navigation as well as SEO backlinking, keyword optimization and tracking, and competitor analysis.
To learn more about digital marketing and increasing website traffic, contact us here.
