Ask your browser a question, and it will take you to SERPs (Search Engine Rankings Pages). Some 95% of the people browsing the internet never look beyond the first page. So, if you must push your website higher in those rankings— if you want to tap into and explode your website traffic.
A browser like Google will send a swarm of spiders crawling across billions and billions of websites. The spiders pull those sites into a mega-directory, and when internet searchers ask questions, the browser lists what it measures as the most relevant.
Your objective then is to use the tactics that will make your site relevant. Your website content must appear authoritative and consistent. Browsers are in the advertising business, so they don’t favor content that tries to disguise its advertising intent. So, your site must meet their standards which evolve with their search algorithms. But, there are things you can do to improve your rankings position.
8 hidden traffic sources:
- Optimize your social life. Your business has a social presence, the one you want or the one that happens by accident. Searchers must take advantage of their social context. To optimize your presence in and effect on social media, you must use your social media channels to sell your site. Twitter likes short pitches, Instagram shares relevant pictures, and Pinterest has enormous reach. Some social channels work better for visual products while others promote services, The objective is to tell a friend who will tell a friend who will, and so on.
- Put a tail on your keywords. Long-tail key phrases have three or four words. The phrase can make your site more specific than single keywords. You must remember most people do not search for single words. Those spiders will look for “Cleveland Chevrolet dealers” more than “Chevrolet dealers.” You may draw fewer searches with long-tail keywords, but the traffic will be focused and willing to stay. Then you can use these same long-tails in emails, social media postings, and collateral marketing materials.
- Get a little self-centered. You can link elements in your website to other elements in the site. It’s not feeding on itself, but it is expanding your universe. For example, a blog post or article might link to an ebook or another blog. These internal links keep the searcher interested, keeps on the pages longer, and extend your authority. The internal links facilitate website navigation and reinforce the content that will increase your ranking.
- Call in the power players. When you can secure an interview with a thought leader in your niche market, you build credibility and authority. If you invite subject authorities to write for your site or appear in video-interviews, you add prestige-by-association. They will attract traffic, but they will also expand your reach by plugging your site on their own. Writing for Huffington Post, Gabriel Shaoolian says, “Content that demonstrates thought leadership is more compelling than content that doesn’t because it has built-in authority, clear perspective, and inherent trustworthiness.”
- Make it mobile. Most searches happen on mobile devices rather than a PC. That means you must engineer your website to work on tablets, smartphones, and even smart watches. That means the technology, visuals, and content must work on mobile devices. For example, people searching your site will not scroll through lengthy blogs. Blogs at 500-600 words can catch attention and mover readers on to more, but blogs at 1000-plus words take too much time and interest.
- Comments are made for a response. If you invite people to comment or review, the remarks cannot remain static. When people comment, you must respond with thanks or clarification. You might have to apologize or fix a customer service problem, but you should not ignore the remarks. You are internet user as well as a website owner, so you shouldn’t hesitate to comment on other websites. You want to keep it positive and constructive, but it’s another way of creating interest in your own work.
- Promote your content effectively. Exceptional tools like the Zag platform make your work easier. You need a versatile platform that can monitor your competitors, mine the traffic data, and more. Such tools are your key to finding and maximizing relevant and strategic content and tactics to engage and retain interest.
- Build your personal reputation. You must become the authority in your product or service field. You want to become the “go-to” and sought after voice. So, you must be writing, showing, and talking about what people want to hear. You also reinforce your meaningfulness by contributing blogs, interviews, and videos to other websites in your market. And, you build that reputation and reach like minds by posting content regularly on LinkedIn or forums used and followed by your market.
Building traffic takes a lot of work
There’s even more to this building traffic business. As you can see it takes skills, time, work, and investment. And, the demands will only increase.
Your site cannot wait for interest and traffic. It can no longer be passive; it must be proactive in creating and exploring its own potential. It requires the talent and tools to increase your SEO ranking or sink to search pages never reached. For example, you should notice that a typical Google search sets you up with 10 pages, and that means there are millions of websites that do not rank even that high. You must worry about where your site falls.
Designing, managing and monitoring your website may be beyond the reach of the average business person. According to R.L. Adams in Forbes, “Traffic is the lifeblood of any business. It all starts with traffic.”
You need traffic, or you won’t convert prospects to customers. You need traffic that comes on its own and traffic that has been generated. But, you need content, copy, and technology to make yourself found, to keep them engaged, and make buying easier for them.