The ultimate goal of any webmaster is to generate traffic for their website. No matter how good the products are that you sell or how unique the service is that you offer, they don’t exist to the outside world if no one is reading about them on your site. Not only is website traffic crucial to the success of your products and services, it is also a great tool for monetizing your website. With more visitors coming to your website each day, your pages become more attractive to advertisers looking to promote their products and services on your page.
Generating more traffic for your website is not an easy task. Many companies will resort to paid services to help push viewers to their site and boost traffic ratings. However, we have found a number of useful tips for boosting your traffic from sources like Google without having to spend a dime in the process. In the following paragraphs, we’ll cover some of the basic concepts to help you generate more traffic from Google.
Get Social
Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your website and generating more traffic. What does social media have to do with creating traffic from Google? Well, there are two ways social media can help boost your profile on Google. For starters, a Google+ page for your business can help improve your standing in Google SERPs. Simply having a Google+ account isn’t quite good enough to generate traffic. However, if you actively engage with customers through your Google+ account, your standing on Google SERPs can improve enough to land your page higher in rankings.
Additionally, Google measures activity levels on various social media platforms. By tracking likes, shares, and retweets of your content through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Google gauges the level of interest in your page and the relevance of your content to particular searches. More activity across your social media accounts results in higher rankings, which makes it easier for searchers to find your page.
Mix Up Your Content
Recent changes from Google have created an environment in which stagnant, one-dimensional content is punishable by search engine mediocrity. If you want to land higher in Google search ranks and gain visibility, mix up the content you offer on your page. There will always be a place for informative text on your site, but whenever possible, add in pictures of products and demonstrational videos that give viewers something worth looking at.
Write Good Headlines
The content of a blog post is critical to the success of your message. However, if you spend all of your time writing a great post and spend two seconds hammering out a headline, you’ve likely just wasted all the time you spent on the post itself. Good headlines can make or break any post, and as a result, the traffic coming to your site. Google will present headlines in its search results, and if people aren’t interested in the quality and content of your headline, they are not likely to waste the time surfing to your page to read the whole blog post.
One thing we’ve found helpful is to create various headlines. When you’re done with a post, take a few moments to write out a number of different headlines. Read through them on your own, or as a group with your fellow employees, and settle on the one that has the strongest punch.
Take SEO Seriously
If you aren’t taking on-page SEO seriously, you are one of the last ones to realize its importance. Optimizing the content on your pages for search engine bots is critical to landing higher in search results. Content shouldn’t contain keywords that feel unnatural to the reader, and writing out 750 words for the sake of hitting some magical number is pointless if you have to add a bunch of fluff.
Focus on using smart keywords that are relevant to your business in general, and the content of the post more specifically. When it comes to length, never extend a post just to hit a magical number point. If you can get your message across in 400 words, do it.
Don’t Forget Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are often overlooked by webmasters looking to hit the primary keywords and land high in one area. Long-tail keywords are specialized to certain product, service, or even geographic searches. When people know exactly what they want, just not where to find it, they conduct searches using long-tail keywords. With a little bit of research, you can find out which long-tail keywords perform best for your page and integrate them into your content. How can you conduct that research?
Use Google Webmaster Tools
When Google goes through the effort of providing you with the tools you need to succeed, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and use those tools rather than ignore them. Search Engine Watch has a comprehensive breakdown of Google Webmaster Tools, but we’ll cover the important things you need to know:
- Verification: Verifying your website tells Google that you are the one responsible for the content on the page, and that you alone should have access to data regarding the page. Verifying your site goes a long way to improving your standing with Google, while also providing access to tools that help you generate traffic for your site.
- Search Appearance: Knowing what your site will look like in search results can help you optimize your page appearance and make it more attractive to potential visitors.
- Structured Data: Google’s powerful collection of tools allows you to analyze searches on your page, keywords used, and traffic patterns across your site.
There is no need to spend vast amounts of money generating traffic for your website when there are a multitude of free approaches that can help you attract visitors. Whether you do the legwork yourself or use your Google Webmaster Tools account, it is easy to improve traffic flow on your site for free.
