It’s a question every website owner has asked himself. While the creation of a website is becoming easier and easier, it has become more and more difficult to attract actual visitors to your website due to the ever-growing mass of websites. Therefore, targeted measures and strategies are needed to increase the traffic on your website.
Which measures can you take
The answer is not as simple as it seems. There are as many strategies and theses on how to stay ahead as there are websites competing for traffic.
Traffic can be generated directly on own website as well as through targeted marketing strategies. However, you should be aware that your own website, its functionality, and user and search engine friendliness is the basis for a long-lasting, organic generation of traffic.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
So, let’s start with traffic generation by improving your website. A term that is hard to ignore in online marketing and continues to gain more and more relevance lies at the core of this: SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Although many are aware of what it means, it is worth the reminder: SEO is about optimizing your website in terms of factors relevant for search engines. These improvements will result in your website showing up ahead of other websites in the organic search results.
Search engines such as Google operate with an algorithm that evaluates a website based on various factors and places it based on its ranking. If the search engine algorithm perceives your website and its user-friendliness well, , your website will become more relevant and more potential visitors will be attracted. The result: Organically generated traffic!
SEO accounts for all aspects of your website – from the more technical ones to the actual content. SEO is divided into OnPage and OffPage SEO.
OnPage
OnPage SEO, as the name suggests, refers to everything that takes place on your website. OnPage optimization creates a technically and content optimized landing page and subpages of the website, which is the foundation of any traffic increase.
1) Technical improvements: To gain traffic your website must work from top to bottom. To ensure that visitors can always access your website from anywhere, mobile and desktop accessibility must be enabled. In addition, loading speed, server accessibility and security standards are also relevant as you organically grow a crowd of returning visitors.
2) Structural improvements: In addition, the actual structure of the website must be improved so that visitors and algorithms can find their way around your site. This starts with the length of the URL and continues throughout the entire website: The HTML code, the font, file names, headings, page titles – all these factors will determine the growth of your traffic and must be included in your search engine optimization process. Also, your website should be accessible to people with disabilities. Hence you should not overlook the importance of ADA compliance.
- Content improvements: Content that is relevant to your target group, informative, and frequently posted is a necessity to be evaluated as relevant by the algorithm. Content is a very important aspect to gain traffic, which is why it should be continually improved. While a clear structure should also be recognizable here, it is also particularly important that the content contains the right keywords and targets the needs of your respective target readers. Individuality is also important – duplicates are not favored by the algorithm and will weaken your ranking and the traffic that follows.
OffPage
While OnPage optimization leads to increased traffic through changes on your website, OffPage optimization takes care of the popularity of your website through so-called backlinks. These backlinks lead to yours from other websites and are also relevant for your target group.
It is hard to say how to gain more backlinks, but effective OnPage Optimization is the best way to convince other websites that your website is informative and relevant enough to link to it. Writing blog posts for other websites also offers the possibility of placing backlinks. Organically building a large backlink system is a challenging task that requires a deep understanding of the subject matter.
You can see how complex SEO is due to the large number of relevant factors. In addition, it is an ongoing process, and the website must be constantly re-examined and improved by analyzing data in order to maintain its relevance. SEO thrives on testing and analyzing, which makes it no easy task.
To attract more traffic to your website, you can consider hiring a SEO agency that will do the job for you properly. That way your website will have a higher positioning on Google and you can succeed in building traffic effectively and long term.
Traffic through other marketing activities
Traffic should never be generated through just one method. Various pillars of traffic acquisition offer the best possible support to expand your reach. Therefore, building a SEO-optimized website, also consider other measures that can further strengthen the effect.
Another pillar can be Facebook advertising, which can be shown specifically to your target group. Social media advertising through word of mouth marketing, swipe-up links, influencers, and affiliate marketing can create a great increase in traffic as well.
Basically, any form of marketing that draws attention to your website can be used to generate traffic. However, make sure ahead of time that your website is prepared for a larger rush of visitors – which brings us back to SEO.
Conclusion
Generating traffic can happen in many ways. Search engine optimization, however, is the foundation for long-term traffic growth and that’s why it should not be dismissed as incidental by anyone interested in their website’s traffic.
In order to get more traffic, it is necessary to continuously improve the criteria of the search engine algorithm as well as further employ marketing activities that build on it.
