huiadesign

7 ways to improve your website traffic

Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by Sheryl in All blog posts, internet demystified, website traffic

I’ve written this article for any of you that feel quite confused by google, website traffic and just plain having a website (or maybe you’re considering having one). I hope that it will answer some questions and encourage you to investigate further. Once you’ve read it don’t go out with all guns blazing thinking

YES I’m going to twitter every hour, write a blog every day and send a newsletter weekly along with monitoring my site traffic with vengeance  Hell if google won’t just give me more customers like I expected then you can be damn sure I’m gonna get them there!

You probably won’t stick to it so begin at the beginning and take one step at a time…

1. The most obvious one – keep your web content fresh, google loves changing content. Don’t just put up a website and leave it, consider adding new items, changing text etc on a regular basis. If you’re not doing that then your probably need a good nudge, the old days of static (brochure) sites are over.
2. Add a blog. Blogging is a fantastic way of communicating effectively with your audience and keeps your content changing. Ensure to blog about relevant topics with links to other blog posts, other sites or other parts of your own site. Be interesting and use plain language almost as if you are having a conversation. Blog regularly and link your blog posts so that twitter or your own subscribers are notified directly. I do this with Syrup magazine and always have a big jump in site traffic on the day that I blog. I love designing blogs so talk to me about adding one to your site. Remember with blogging start small, start in a niche that you can do well, get there gradually. Always reaching…
3. Consider using some social networks like Twitter. And if you’re wondering what the hell twitter is check it out – www.twitter.com. It’s basically a short form of blogging and enables you to connect with a whole bunch of likeminded people who in turn can passively promote your business through their own networks. You can read more about Twitter here. Twitter has the added bonus of being alot of fun. Facebook is another obvious one, personally I find it boring so don’t really use it. Don’t feel like you have to be on everything.



4. Use google tools to help with site traffic analysis, Google analytics is a great resource, you open a google account and then add tracking code to every page of your website enabling you to see who is visiting, what keywords they are using etc. It will also tell you your ‘bounce rate’. This is the amount of visitors who land on your home page and then exit after a few seconds. If this rate is high you need to look seriously at your homepage content. I have some clients like Venus Clubs, Syrup magazine, Quicktraining, Mary Anne Morgan… who have negligible bounce rates because their visitors are engaged by what they find on the homepage so are exploring further. Even if you feel completely baffled by the internet – take a keen interest in your website and learn as much as you can.
5. Keywords: It’s official google no longer uses keywords in meta tags (these are or used to be in the header source code of your web site) for searching so thankfully we don’t need to plaster 999 irrelevant keywords into our code in the hope that a potential client in Siberia might stumble across us. What we need to do is have keywords in our content mix. Google has a tool for helping figure out what yours should be or just simply think like one of your potential customers and what they might type in to a search engine to hopefully arrive at your website, then add these in real language to your content. If you’re in the coffee business DON’T mention the word coffee 500 times on your homepage. Not only will your content sound a bit ridiculous but google will get the message after about 2 or 3 mentions – I can see you all rushing madly now to change your homepages : )
6. Links: Yes links are great both from your site and to your site but think about those links rather than having 50 random links consider having a few quality links that can improve your page rank. Ask to be linked by relevant sites that have higher traffic and higher page rank than yourself. Also commenting on other relevant blogs allows you to add your website link.
7. Newsletters: I know, I know we’re all getting quite bombarded with newsletters via email these days but it is direct marketing to your database. Don’t make them generic or all about sales, offer something to your subscribers – give them great information, point them to something new on your website, give them some special offer. Those of you who use my huiamail system, if you’re not getting around 50% or more having opened your newsletter then you need to change your content. Those of you who aren’t on my huiamail system then talk to me about it. It’s affordable, easy and gives you some useful statistics.

In summary I just want to say that just putting a website on the net is never enough it’s like any part of your business, it requires some commitment and effort. Over a period of time I can assure you – you will get results! However I am by no means an expert and am learning all the time just like you so felt I wanted to pass that knowledge on.

Tags: blog design, google analytics, social networks, twitter, website traffic