Location. Location. Location. It can’t be reinforced enough. Your brand must be in the correct “locations.” But, every website at one point has had zero web traffic, meaning, it wasn’t in the correct location. Yet somehow, some websites are able to garner hundreds, if not millions of monthly visitors. Overcoming this one hurdle is what drives billions of spending in online advertising every year. But, just because you have a catchy title and a well-designed website doesn’t mean you’re going to drive traffic to your site. Much more needs to be done to close that new customer or client.

Navigation

Have you ever used a map without street names? Me neither. So, make sure your website is easy to navigate with clear icons and a logical order to the user experience.

Potential customers won’t engage with a website that has poor navigation, so keep it simple and free from complexities.

Great Content

You may have heard that “content is king” and this is somewhat true in the online world. Great content will keep your potential and existing clients engaged.

If your clients are engaged they are more likely to stay on your site and interact with your online business. This is the first step to getting the all-important sale.

But, if your website is an information-only website then the content is an absolutely crucial element to attracting traffic to your website.

Search Engine Optimization

Google is changing the way websites are ranked on a daily basis so keywords are changing as well. To be clear, keywords are not disappearing but they ARE changing.

Google’s algorithm will rank sites higher if the website is using long-tail keywords as well. So what is a long-tail keyword?

Long-tail keywords are how people search the web. For instance, if you want to buy a new agency to help you make a new website. You very likely won’t type “agency” in the search box. You are much more likely to type “(your city) website designer” or “top 10 website agencies in (your city)”. This is a long-tail keyword.

Google ranks keywords in real-time because they focus on the user and want to give the user the most relevant information.

Handheld Devices

According to a recent report from SimilarWeb, mobile web traffic has jumped 30.6% since 2017, while desktop traffic dropped 3.3%. Below is a graph from Statista showing approximately all web traffic is now mobile related. But it’s not just the numbers that are changing. Mobile visitors also behave differently from their desktop web counterparts, staying on pages for shorter periods of time, which is impacting core metrics web publishers today track % of web browsing is done via a handheld device like a smartphone or tablet. That said, all of this needs to be kept in context. For example, it is not very likely that a college application will be completed on a mobile device. But, if you’re selling a product of some sort you really need to pay attention to how your site behaves on mobile.

What this means is that your website needs to be optimized to operate efficiently on handheld devices. Your webpages need to open quickly with very good download speeds. This is imperative.

So, if your webpages are not scalable then you may find yourself with less traffic than you desired.

Social Media Platforms

If you are looking for the most powerful feature to increase traffic to your webpages then you will need to integrate your social media platforms with your website.

By social media we don’t just mean Facebook. If you’re not leveraging Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn you are really missing powerful marketing tools.

By integrating your website with social media you will rank higher on google and find traffic begin to organically flow to your website.

Social media will not only increase your business presence in the online business world, but it will push your brand and increase customer engagement.

Provide a Secure Environment

A major concern for online buyers is credit card security. Make sure the purchasing process is simple and secure for your customer, SSL encryption will give your customers confidence making them more likely to complete the transaction.

But, there is something else to consider. People won’t buy from sites that don’t look professional. If a site looks “off” in any way you are going to end up with lost sales.

Google Analytics

Use Google Analytics to help you manage your online business. Google Analytics is free and provides all the information you need to keep up with trends and how much traffic is visiting your webpages.

With Google Analytics, you can focus on tweaking your business to increase its appeal to the online audience.