Business owners spend a great deal of time and money trying to “gain traction” or get “traffic” to their websites only to see little results.
Generally the reason is simple … and so can the solution be as well.
There are a few things either you or your web designer can do that can help get you noticed.
- When did you update your website last? A stagnant unchanging site will not bring in visitors. Change some images, add some content, re-purpose old content, make things fresh and relevant.
- Outdated or expired sales or specials. Once the sale is over take it off your site. Having a special that expired weeks ago will frustrate anyone that may visit. Use plugins that automatically remove popups or messages that are expired.
- Market your local community. Everyone has heard of SEO by now yet few get specific for their local market. Use keywords that set you apart from the competition not just in your niche but also in your neighborhood.
- Spend a little to get a lot. Google can be your best friend, but like any friend you have to spend time with them. Stroke her ego, spend a little in Google Adwords, she will return the favor with online admiration.
- Mobile matters to you and your customers. If your site is not mobile friendly you are losing. Everyone uses their phones first when searching, make sure when they find you they have a great user experience or they will never come back.
- Back-link love with permission. Linking to other websites may seem a bit counter-intuitive but Google and your clients will love you for it. Be sure if you do that the links make sense and bring value to your clients. Depending on the content you might want to ask the owner first, many times they will reciprocate the link love.
- Get social with a purpose. Social media changes all the time, even the best social media marketers have to stay on their toes to keep up with the best practices. It is not enough to just create great shareable content, but they must be active on the applicable social media channels to get their message out to the world.
- Use internal links on your own content. Whenever you create new content look for ways to link to other content that you have already created to link to within your own website. Users of Yoast SEO have the advantage of the Yoast Internal Link tool that assists them in finding content to link to as they create.
- Make sure your site has speed. Slow websites cause high bounce rates. Optimize your images, check your site structure, use hosting that is worth its weight. All of these contribute to the speed of the web page load which in turn either keeps or loses visitors.
Keep in mind these are simple steps that either you or your web designer can do to start building traffic patterns for your small business.
We could keep going but you would likely get overwhelmed and want to stop reading. If you would like to learn more on how you can generate traffic to your business or even better yet have us help you accomplish your goals contact us and schedule your discovery session today.