14 SEO Techniques That Can Increase Your Website Traffic
As a business owner, you already know that a majority of consumers can be found online. They’re mostly on social media or use search engines to find products and services they need.
As such, it’s only prudent for your brand to have an online presence. The bad news is that the digital sphere is oversaturated with companies trying to reach their target audience.
Simply having a website is no longer enough. You need to ensure that your target market can find you online when they search for keywords related to your business. This is where SEO comes in.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website so as to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs), thereby increasing visibility and organic traffic.
There are various techniques you can use to improve your website’s SEO and help it rank higher on SERPs.
Here are some of the most effective ones:
Table of Contents
1. Implement Content Optimization Right Away
Content optimization is an important part of SEO that can help improve your website ranking and get you more organic traffic. By optimizing your content, you can make sure that it’s targeted towards the right keywords and is helping you rank for those keywords.
These are some of the best ways to implement content optimization:
Find Appropriate Word Counts and Keyword Densities
One of the most important on-page organic SEO techniques is optimizing your content for the right keyword densities and word counts. This means using relevant keywords throughout your content in a way that doesn’t disrupt the flow or readability.
It can be tricky to get the perfect balance, but there are tools available to help you determine appropriate densities and counts. Once you have this information, aim to use your target keywords about 2-5% of the time for the best results.
Test Your Meta Titles To Optimize (Click Through Rate) CTR
Meta titles are headers that summarize the main topic of your page. They are what show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs), and are arguably one of the most important on-page optimization factors, along with meta descriptions.
Not only do meta titles have to be accurate descriptions of your page’s content, but they also need to be catchy enough to entice a searcher to click through to your site. This is your chance to make a great first impression and convince someone that your page is worth their time.
Meanwhile, meta descriptions are the brief summaries that appear beneath your title tag in the SERPs. Although they don’t have as much of an impact on rankings as they used to, meta descriptions are still important for two reasons:
- They give searchers more information about your page’s content before they click through
- A well-written meta description can improve your CTR, which can indirectly improve your rankings
To write effective meta descriptions, keep them under 155 characters and make sure they accurately describe the content on your page.
Identify Pages With Declining Traffic Using Content Decay
Content decay refers to the gradual decline in traffic that a piece of content experiences over time. There are many factors that can contribute to content decay, such as:
- The topic is no longer relevant
- The article is outdated
- Better content has been published on the same topic
To identify pages with declining traffic, you can use Google Analytics. Go to your website’s Traffic Sources report and look for any pages that have experienced a significant drop in traffic over the past few months.
Once you’ve identified pages that are decaying, you can take steps to revive them.
For example, you could update the content to make it more relevant and add new sections to cover any changes in the topic. Lastly, promote the page on social media and other channels to boost visibility.
Cover Related Questions To Align With Search Intent
One of the most important things you can do with content optimization is to ensure your content is aligned with search intent, which is what people are looking for when they use a search engine.
A great way to do this is to cover related questions in your content. For example, if someone is searching for “How to fix a broken pipe,” you could include a section on your page that answers common questions like “How much does a new pipe cost?” or “What are the pros and cons of fixing a broken pipe myself?”
Search intent has become a pivotal ranking factor. Knowing this, it’s important to make sure your content is not only optimized for the right keywords but also covers the topics searchers are looking for.
2. Provide a Flawless Page Experience
User experience should always be one of your main priorities when it comes to SEO. Creating a flawless page experience can actually increase your website traffic significantly.
To ensure that your pages provide an optimal experience for users, you need to focus on several key elements:
- Page speed: Users expect pages to load quickly, and they will likely leave if a page takes too long to load. Make sure to optimize your pages for speed by minifying code, compressing images, and using a content delivery network.
- Mobile-friendliness: More and more users are accessing the internet on mobile devices, so it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for these users. Use responsive design and ensure that your pages can be easily accessed and navigated on a mobile device.
- Accessibility: Some users may have disabilities that prevent them from using your website properly. To ensure that everyone can access your content, you need to optimize your website for accessibility. This includes using proper ALT text for images, providing transcripts for video content, and using clear and concise language.
- Engaging content: If your content is boring or difficult to read, users will likely click away from your page. Make sure your content is engaging and easy to read by using short paragraphs, headings, and bullet points.
You should also use visuals, such as images and videos, to break up your text and keep readers engaged.
By focusing on these elements, you can create a page experience that is truly flawless. Not only will this help you rank higher in search results, but it will also increase the amount of time users spend on your blog, which can lead to more conversions.
3. Increase Your Dwell Time
It’s important to keep your visitors engaged on your website for as long as possible. This is called “dwell time” and it is a key ranking factor for SEO. The longer someone spends on your website, the more likely they are to convert into a customer.
Here are some ways to increase dwell time:
Make Your Posts Easy To Read
When you’re writing your blog posts, keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Use bullet points and numbers when possible. And, include images to break up your text. Doing all of these things will make your content easier to read — and that will encourage people to stick around longer, thus, increasing your dwell time.
Use the Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing
One way to keep people on your site longer is to use the inverted pyramid style of writing. This means starting with your most important information first and then working down to the less important details.
By doing this, you’re more likely to keep people’s attention since they will know what they’re getting right from the start. Plus, if they do happen to leave before reaching the end, they will at least have read your most crucial points.
4. Focus on Topic Clusters Instead of Keywords
Aside from keywords, you can increase the relevance of your content by focusing on topic clusters. A topic cluster is a group of related content pieces that revolve around a central, keyword-focused theme.
Some tips to determine topic clusters that would increase web traffic:
Know Your Target Audience
In order to improve your website traffic, you need to first know your target audience. Once you know who your target audience is, you can then focus on creating content that appeals to them.
This will help you attract more visitors to your site who are interested in what you have to offer.
One way to get to know your target audience is by using Google Analytics. This tool can help you track where your website traffic is coming from and what type of keywords they are using to find your site.
This information can be very helpful in determining what type of content to create that will appeal to your target audience.
Organize Content Into Clusters
You can also categorize existing content into clusters. This way, when people search for a certain topic, they’ll be more likely to find all the content you have on that topic in one place. This is especially useful if you have a lot of long-form content, such as blog posts or white papers.
Do Your Keyword Research
Of course, there’s nothing like research to give you direction. Keyword research is the first step in any SEO strategy and should be done before you start writing content. Once you know what keywords to target, it’s time to start creating content around those topics.
But don’t just stuff your keywords into your content — use them naturally throughout the piece so that it flows well and is still readable.
If you force keywords into your content, it will not only turn off readers but also get flagged by search engines as spam.
5. Create Voice Assistant-Friendly Content
More and more people are using voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant to perform web searches. This means that if your content is not optimized for these devices, it will be harder for people to find it.
There are a few things you can do to make your content more voice assistant-friendly:
Use Long-Tail Keywords
Unlike traditional search, voice search users utilize a more conversational approach in their searches. As such, they use more long-tail keywords than traditional search users.
Long-tail keywords are simply longer, more specific phrases that target a particular audience. By using long-tail keywords, you can reach a more targeted audience with your content and increase your website traffic as a result.
Use Structured Data
Structured data is a code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. This can be in the form of adding schema.org markup to your HTML.
Schema.org is a project by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Yandex that aims to create a shared vocabulary for structured data on the web.
Adding structured data can help your website appear in rich snippets, which are special search results that include additional information about your website.
This can boost visibility for your target keywords and help you attract more clicks from the search results.
6. Optimize Your Headings
One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is making sure your headings are optimized. Your title tags and meta descriptions are what show up in the search results, so make sure they accurately reflect the content on your page and include relevant keywords.
In addition to optimizing your title tags, you should also use Heading 1 (H1) and Heading 2 (H2) tags throughout your website’s content to break it up into smaller, more digestible sections.
7. Repurpose and Refresh Your Old Content Regularly
One of the best ways to increase your website traffic is to regularly repurpose and refresh your old content. By giving your older articles and blog posts a makeover, you can help them rank higher in search engine results and attract new readers.
To achieve this, you can create a video or infographic from your article or create a podcast episode from it. Another great way to refresh your old content is to update it with new information.
For instance, if you have an article on “10 SEO Tips for Beginners,” you can update it with “20 SEO Tips for Beginners” or add more tips as they become available.
Not only will this help you attract new readers, but it will also show search engines that your content is relevant and up-to-date, which will help them rank your content higher in search engine results.
Repurposing content is also a great way to update your content that contains surveys, studies or announcements.
8. Create Videos and a YouTube Channel
Creating videos doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. You can start with a simple screencast or tutorial that shows visitors how to do something related to your business, like how to use your product or service.
Once you have a few videos, create a YouTube channel and optimize it for SEO. Use keywords in your channel’s description and in the titles and tags of your videos. Be sure to promote your website on your channel.
9. Invest In Your Content and Backlinks
Engaging content is vital for SEO success, but it’s also important to make sure your site is being linked to by other websites.
Quality backlinks help your site rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and can increase the amount of traffic coming to your website.
There are a number of ways to get high-quality backlinks, such as guest blogging or writing testimonials for other companies in your industry.
You can also encourage other websites to link to your content by creating shareable infographics or videos.
10. Make Your Content More Visual
Make sure that your website content is not just a big block of text. Adding images, infographics, videos, and other forms of visual content can help break up your text and make your content more engaging for visitors.
This will also make it more likely that people will share your content on social media.
11. Target Local Searchers with Landing Pages and Listings
Optimizing your website for local search is important, especially if you have a brick-and-mortar shop. Aside from web traffic, you also want to attract foot traffic from customers who are physically near your business.
Here are some ways to do so:
Double-Check Your Directory Listings
If you want to attract local customers, it is important to make sure your business is listed in relevant online directories.
One way to do this is to search for your business name in Google and see if any directory listings come up. If not, you can add your business to Google My Business and other directories like Yelp.
Build and Optimize Local Landing Pages
Local searchers are often looking for specific products or services near them. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, it’s important to make sure that your website includes local landing pages.
Include the name of the city or region where your business is located on these pages, along with relevant content and keywords. You can also create separate listings for each location on online directories.
Technical SEO for Local Search
Technical SEO for local search focuses on optimizing your website so that it can be easily found and indexed by search engines. This includes optimizing your site’s structure, code, and content for local keywords and phrases.
12. Focus on High-Intent Keywords
High-intent keywords are those that indicate that the searcher is ready to buy or take action. For example, “buy shoes online” or “download e-book.” These keywords are more valuable to your business than general, informational keywords like “how to start a blog.”
Focusing on high-intent keywords will help you attract visitors who are more likely to convert into customers or leads.
13. Implement E-A-T Best Practices
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and it’s a set of guidelines put forth by Google that help them determine whether or not a website is of high quality.
If you can show Google that your site is an expert resource on your topic, they’re more likely to rank it higher in search results.
You can do this by:
Publish High-Quality “About” Pages and Author Bios
An “About” page is one of the most important pages on your website. It’s an opportunity to tell visitors who you are, what you do, and why they should care.
Make sure your About page is up to date, accurate, and informative. Include a photo of yourself or your team, and make sure the page is free of typos and grammatical errors.
Implement a Robust Content Review Process
Your content review process should involve multiple people from different departments within your company. This way, you can get a well-rounded perspective on each piece of content before it’s published.
Build More Backlinks
Backlinks remain to be an important ranking factor for Google. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more likely you are to rank higher in SERPs.
Creating great content that others will want to link to, guest blogging on other websites in your industry, and getting featured on industry-related websites and online directories are just some ways to build more backlinks.
14. Optimize Your Internal Links
Aside from backlinks, internal links can help web visitors navigate your site easily. By optimizing your internal links, you can also help search engine crawlers index your pages better and rank them higher in SERPs.
Some tips to optimize your internal links include:
Push TOFU Readers Further Down the Funnel
TOFU readers or “top of the funnel” readers are those who are just beginning to learn about your company or product. They might not be familiar with your brand name yet, but they’re interested in the general topic that you write about.
Your goal with TOFU readers is to introduce them to your brand and get them interested in what you have to say. Once you’ve done that, you can then start pushing them further down the funnel with more targeted content.
Use Clear and Descriptive Anchor Text
When adding internal links, it’s important to use clear and descriptive anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text that’s used for a link. Using clear and descriptive anchor text makes it easier for search engines to understand what the linked-to page is about, which can help improve your website’s ranking.
Limit the Number of Internal Links
Just like with keywords, avoid stuffing your content with internal links. Too many links will not only make your content harder to read but it could also get you penalized by Google.
The best way to use internal links is to link to other pages on your website when it makes sense.
For example, if you’re writing a post about easy SEO techniques, you can link to another post on your site that covers a specific technique in more detail.
Takeaway
There are a lot of SEO techniques to help increase your website traffic. It can be daunting to think about all the different ways to improve your website’s ranking in search engines.
Fortunately, we’re here to help. We can take care of the digital marketing aspect for you while you focus on running your business. Let Infintech Designs help you in your SEO efforts.
Our team of experts will help increase your website traffic with these SEO strategies and techniques to attract more potential customers to your website.