How to attract organic traffic to your website
In this digital error, a website is a must-have for any serious business or entrepreneur. Research shows that more than 80% of purchase decisions begin with search conducted on the internet. With such figures, you will obviously be missing plenty of opportunities if you do not have a website.
After setting up your website, the million dollar question is how to get online users to visit your website considering the myriads of similar resources from your competitors.
So how does the average user find you (Your website)?
Unless you are Google or Facebook, many people with not know your URL (Say, www.yourwebsite.com) off head. So how do they do it? Usually, someone looking to purchase a product or service will go to a search engine such as Google or Bing and type out what they are looking for. The search engine will then offer them results, 10 links per page, half of which will be paid adverts. Needless to say, you will be lucky to make it on the first page. You might wonder why it’s important to be listed on the first page of search results, well, research shows that 75% of online users never get past the first page of search results.
This article is meant to give you useful tips that will help you attract traffic to your website without paying a dime.
- Invest in a professional website design
You do not want people to leave as soon as they land on your website, the idea is to have them hang around and shop. Have a clean design, appealing to the eye, easy to navigate, with clear relevant images, avoid congested content, make your site easy to scan. If possible have all your services/products accessible from the home/landing page.
- Content is king
They say that content is king. Do not just copy and paste content from the web. Generate your own content and customize it to your business. Research your content, make it interesting to read and informative. If your content is rich and unique, users might even share your content online or even bookmark your site.
- SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of rules, set by search engines that you have to follow when authoring content to ensure that your content is given priority on search results. This is a whole new topic that we will probably discuss later. You can read about it online or get SEO experts to do it for you.
- Social Media
Considering the amount of time people spend here, social media channels are a serious source of organic traffic. Create official branded pages and profiles for your business. Instead of sharing content directly on these platforms, share links from your website. This will ensure the links open on your website where visitors can hopefully see other services and products you offer.
- Subscription forms
Imagine someone liked your site and wanted to be notified about future product updates. A subscription form will help you achieve this. This is ideally a simple form where visitors fill in their names and contact details. You can then use this information to send them newsletters or even contact them via phone.
- Google Plus (G+)
This is the Google social network. This is so important it deserves a mention of its own. It might not be very popular, but for some reason content published on G+ is very friendly to the Google search engine. (Well, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out why). Publish your content there and thank me later.
- Online Directories.
There are so many online directories and aggregators publishing business contacts and location for free. A very popular one is Google Business Location, enlist here and on any other online directory that you can find out there.
- Email campaigns
Email marketing is a very effective way of telling people about your business. There are plenty of free email marketing tools out there. Use these tools to send email campaigns to prospects.
- Blog
Start a blog for your business and post regularly. Popularize your blog and build a fan base. Your blog might even become a source of income for your business if you do it right. You can read more about how to make money from a blog here.
- Optimize for mobile
Mobile internet usage surpassed desktop searches in 2016. Make sure your content is mobile friendly and adaptable to smaller screens since most of your visitors will be consuming your content on mobile devices.
- Post on forums and answer questions on question and answer forums
Post as a guest on public forums and answer questions on question and answer forums such as Quora and Yahoo Answers. Make sure to leave your contact details and a link to your website. If you offered a solution to a problem, users with a similar problem will most likely contact you for consultancy.
- Sitemap
This might come last on our list but it’s probably the most important. Generate a sitemap and submit to Google Webmaster. A site map is a structure of your entire website. It helps Google crawl your website and know what is where making it easier and faster to give results on its search engine.
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