With any business, the bottom line is, you need new customers. How do you attract or gain exposure for your site and gain those customers? These days, online is the place to find them — or rather, for them to find you. But how do you go about it? Here are 3 ways to help attract those consumers and drive website traffic.
1. Stay up to speed with Google algorithms:
Google’s search engine is constantly updating with initiatives such as Penguin and Panda. While you don’t have to have an expert understanding of how search engines work, it is important to know how to give them what they like. A very basic and effective “follow the rules” approach is to refresh your content often (enter the blog!) and only use original (not repeat) content for that blog or elsewhere on your site as you add pages. These are the keys to making sure the search engines find you, visit you and reward you. Google is successful because it wants its users to value their experience: it has become a valuable tool for daily life. .
2. Add some paid search:
This sounds counterintuitive to the above discussion, but there is some logic to adding paid search (pay-per-click) to your overall strategy. Why? Google has a set regulation “in the interest of user privacy” to not provide keyword data for those logged-in to Gmail conducting searches. This proves to be a headache when you’re trying to evaluate organic traffic and the search words that brought people to your site: all the traffic that comes through Google is lumped into one data set. The way around this? Buy some pay-per-click, because Google does not filter that data. That means you can see complete keyword performance metrics on the traffic you’re buying. Use insights gleaned there to improve your organic search keywords. You’ll reap two added benefits as well. First, this will ensure it’s expensive for your competitors if they attempt to bid for your branded keywords. Second, you’ll see an immediate bump in your daily traffic.
3. Have a good meta description:
This is a very commonly overlooked piece of content. When your website does appear in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page), how do you engage folks to actually click to your website? Does the summary (the meta description) lure the reader in to click to see more? The meta description (those two lines below your name on the page) is what you will be judged by. Most content management systems prompt you to enter your meta data, and they even count the characters as you write so that you know your words will fit the space that is available. The meta description is intended to be factual, but there are ways to make sure that it’s an inviting message for a user that will prompt them to visit your site. Understand the messaging your target audience responds to. Include terms that hit their pain points/solve their problems/meet them at their moment of need. Basically, sell yourself right there, right now. Think of it as one line that sums you up perfectly and completely.
