Emma McClenaghan
Many businesses struggle to get their website in front of their target audience, and as the competition rises each year, it is only becoming more difficult to compete with larger businesses. Below are a few reasons why your website might not be getting visitors and how you can bring more organic traffic to your website without using paid adverts.
Ranking on Google & Other Search Engines
The majority of website traffic comes from Google or other search engines so it goes without saying, that unless you have an SEO optimised website you are missing out on users searching for products/services or information like yours. Below are a few ways you can improve your website and it's content to help your target market find your website on search engines.
Have Your Included Your Keywords or Search Terms?
The concept of a keyword is simple, they are words that indicate what the content is about. The algorithm that determines where to rank your website on search engines is well trained to pick up data from a structured document. You need to provide the algorithm with the correct data for it to determine the correct target audience for your content. Keywords are one way to do this. As it is trained, it knows where to find these. These are usually in your heading tags, in the content you are writing, and in your meta data ( images, title tags etc). If you are writing for your target audience and accurately reflecting your business, these words should come naturally to your content but you can also focus on keywords. If you are a relatively new business or a startup, you will want to rank with low competitive keywords so you start appearing on the first page of Google for some low competition keyphrases. After you build up authority, you can move onto more competitive terms. Using a tool like the Google Adwords Keywords tool will help you find ideas for keywords and tell you how competitive the keywords are. Remember, the machine is well trained, and will know if you are over stuffing your content with keywords, rather than providing useful information to your website visitor.
Have you included enough content?
You may have added your keywords to your website and you are still not ranking on Google. It maybe the case that you are in a competitive industry and other websites provide more use to the audience you are trying to target or you do not have enough content for the machine to determine what your website is about. As a general rule of thumb, try to aim for 2000 words per page. This is not always possible and in some cases it makes no sense to do so, this is okay. But if you are writing and article or providing information to the user make sure you have given them context, enough information and a use to the end user. You can also add more content via article writing, to build up secondary keywords and provide answers to questions your target audience is searching for. This also helps distinguish you as authority in the field and demonstrates your industry knowledge.
Have You Checked The Performance of Your Website?
Most people understand SEO as the process of optimising a website and thus it is often thought of as an add on after a website is built. But in fact SEO goes into every fiber of your website and it needs to be optimised from the very beginning. A Lot of things go into SEO, aside from your content, you have things like the domain name you use, the server you host with, how you choose to render your website, how your website is structured on the backend for the machine, the performance of your website and its accessibility across devices. Failing to meet some or all of these criteria can put you below your competitors online because you are delivering a poor experience for the user. Make sure you are hosting with a reputable provider like Google Cloud Console and try to avoid a shared host if your budget allows you to. This will cost more monthly but the costs are small in comparison to the cost of acquiring a new customer. If you can, we recommend using a development agency or platform like Genysys Engine over DIY platform builders, as you are limited to and restricted to the platform itself, which can put you at a disadvantage to your competitors SEO wise. However, if you are using a DIY platform builder, make sure you pick a template that is responsive on mobile and other devices. These are typically more expensive but also worth the investment as it represents your brand and deliver a better user experience.
Recommendations and Website Return Users
If you deliver a great experience online, your customers will recommend your business to a friend or family member. Studies have shown that customers who have a negative time on your website are 10-16% less likely to recommend your business and return to the website themselves. Google analytics g4 property and Genysys Engine Results makes it easy to monitor your website engagement by providing an average time that your users have been on your website for. Industry standard is around 2-3 minutes. If users are not engaging with your website it could be because your content is not correct for your target market, you are bringing the wrong target market to your website or your website is poorly designed and off-putting to the user. Things that might off put the user include slow page loading times ( a user will not wait longer than 4s on average for a page to load) or a lot of pop ups or distractions that deter them from their goals.
Are Your Utilising Social Media
You want to shout from the rooftops about your business and there are lots of great platforms to do it on. Between Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Twitter, You Tube and more. There are many ways to speak to your target market. If you are a small business, you can not cover all of these platforms at one time. Take some time to find out which platforms your target market uses most. Pick 2 platforms and focus on giving them your attention. The most important part about social media is showing up and posting something of value to your audience.
We Make It Easy
At Genysys Engine, we know it can take a lot of work to bring a steady steam of traffic to your website, which is why we take care of it for you. All we ask you to do is fill in your business information for us to turn it into high ranking content for your business. Start growing your traffic today, book a demo with us.