So you run a small business or a private practice and decide to build your website. You hire a developer and create the site to find that you have very little website traffic. The website doesn’t seem to help you get additional customers. What went wrong?
The most likely reason is that your customers do not see your website when searching for your services on Google, Bing, Yahoo, or other search engines. They see other competing services first and go to them. You worry that you will need to hire an internet marketing service and spend money on online advertisements to get noticed.
Paid advertisements are not the only way!
Buying ads on Google and Facebook is not the only way to attract traffic to your site. Here are a few things you can do to increase traffic to your website.
Fix Errors and Defects
You want your website to be an attractive and easy-to-use tool for visitors, but the opposite can happen if it has errors and defects. These range from spelling mistakes in text or graphics on pages all of the way up to confusing menus that make users feel lost without clear guidance about how they should proceed next.
Fix Technical Issues
For a website to be easily visible on Google and other Search Engines, it must fulfill specific criteria. For example, the website must not have any broken links; the website must have correctly labeled images and meta information for its pages, etc. If you are interested in auditing your website for a complete list of technical defects, please contact us at Opel Solutions, and we will be happy to do a free audit of your site.
Blog Content to drive website traffic (On-Page SEO)
Adding content to educate your customers about your products and services is one of the most effective ways to increase traffic. You do this by creating a blog section where you post articles and content that interests your customers.
But here’s the rub, the content you post has to compete with other websites on the internet, and it is not easy to stand out among all the competitors writing similar content. The secret is not to compete with them directly. You must focus on content and long-tail keywords that are relevant to your local business/practice. E.g., if you were to search for the term ‘Lawyer,’ you might see a list of large law firms. However, if you search for ‘Intellectual Property Lawyer San Diego,’ you might see a different set of results that might be easier to appear on.
For a more comprehensive understanding of SEO, please read our blog on SEO basics here
These simple, broad steps can go a long way to growing website traffic. At Opel Solutions, a digital marketing company, we would be happy to work with you to increase your traffic. You can see some of our work here.