Organic traffic is users visiting your website without you paying for ads or clicks. Seeing a dip in your website’s organic traffic can be disheartening – but it’s not all doom and gloom. Understanding the potential causes and implementing strategic solutions can help you turn things around. Our comprehensive guide will dive into the various factors that could be sabotaging your web traffic and equips you with actionable steps to get your numbers soaring once again. Before we dive in, let’s cover some key terms that you should know in order to get your business in a position to receive organic traffic…
Key terms
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): The practice of improving a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPS). The goal is to rank higher for pertinent search queries, attracting more organic (unpaid) traffic to your website. The overall aim is to make your website more relevant and user-friendly, both for search engines and your target audience.
Google Analytics: A web analytics service offered by Google that helps you track and analyse the traffic on your website and mobile app. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools and reports to understand where visitors are coming from, user behaviour, and conversions. This information allows you to gain valuable insights into your audience, identify areas for improvement, and optimise your website. It is a “freemium” service, offering a basic package for most users and paid options for advanced features and datasets.
Google Business Profile: A free online listing tool for businesses with a physical location or service area. It allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google Search and Maps. It offers visibility, information control on your businesses details, engagement with customers via reviews and questions, and insights about customers. It is crucial for building an online reputation.
User Experience (UX): The overall experience a user has when interacting with your webpage. It encompasses a wide range of factors, including how intuitive your page is, how effectively the page meets the users needs and goals, how quickly and smoothly the user can navigate, how accessible the page is, the aesthetics of the page, and the emotions a user experiences when interacting with it. A user-centred design is crucial for any webpage’s success.
SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages): The webpages displayed by a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo in response to a user’s query. These pages list the results the search engine deems most relevant to the search query, aiming to connect users to the best information
SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages): The webpages displayed by a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo in response to a user’s query. These pages list the results the search engine deems most relevant to the search query, aiming to connect users to the best information
Now, let’s get into our rank-boosting guide…
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Optimise your content
Hopefully you already have a blog on your businesses website with relevant information and helpful articles to inform your customers. But if you don’t, there’s no time like the present! A blog is the perfect way to keep your website’s content up-to-date and ensure that it is constantly being refreshed with the latest insights. High-quality and valuable content tailored to your audience will improve your site’s SEO and increase traffic. Guides (like this one!) and infographics are great ways to gain traffic. -
Research your keywords
Keywords are everything and make up the foundation of SEO. In the world of ever-changing algorithms, understanding how your audience searches for information can make all the difference in achieving a higher search ranking organically. It’s also important to do competitive research when choosing your keywords. There are thousands of online keyword research tools online to help you find the perfect ones for your business. -
Don’t overlook the power of backlinks
A backlink is a link on your website directing to another website; or, a link on a website other than your own that goes to a page on your website. Backlinks are an incredibly important aspect of SEO, because they show search engines that your website has authority, particularly if high-authority domains are linking to it. A good backlink is like an endorsement of your webpage content, because they are how search engines determine your relevancy for search queries.
FYI: Websites that rank #1 on Google have 3.8x more backlinks than the rest of the top 10 sites. Source: Thrive My Way -
Localise your SEO
Is your business local to a specific area? Optimising your Google Business Profile will be a huge benefit to your SEO. Make sure that your profile is up-to-date with verified information like your address, contact number and website. Any inaccurate information will penalise you in the eyes of Google, so make sure it’s all correct! Users will notice errors too, and this can create distrust in your business. Another great way to optimise your local SEO is by getting your clients to write reviews, which creates credibility in the eyes of potential customers, but also Google itself. The more engagement, the higher you rank. -
User experience optimisation
The user’s experience on your website will significantly impact their satisfaction and conversion rates. Excellent UX improves engagement and site traffic, which in turn boosts your website’s ratings on Google. UX is one of the factors that Google considers in its rankings, and optimising your site navigation and design, you will inherently boost your page as a search result. Some tips for UX: Don’t be afraid of white space, make the page mobile-friendly, and don’t forget a compelling call to action! -
Integrate your social media
Social media is a search engine in itself in the digital age. Leveraging your social media platforms can help increase brand awareness and drive additional organic traffic while also fostering community engagement. With social media, you can promote offers, events or deals, showcase happy clients, and run user-generated content from users of your product or service. It’s a great way to be found with hashtags or location tagging and is an easy way to get instant feedback with likes, comments and messages. -
Leverage online testimonials
Reviews are an amazing way to get a boost on Google. Testimonials of your work shows Google that you are a legitimate business, but also increases credibility for any potential clients. People want to hear honest reviews of your work and will keep them scrolling on your page, so don’t be afraid to ask past customers for a testimonial. You can feature their comments on a separate page, and ask them to submit it via your Google Business – a win for rankings and for webpage content! -
Consistently update content
Your content needs to stay fresh in order to not get stuck in an archive. A great way to make sure you are on top of your webpage material is by creating a content calendar of when you will be refreshing blogs, team member bios or a careers page. It’s also a great way to keep yourself accountable for the information you put on your webpage as well as looking at it with fresh eyes – you never know what you may have missed, and mistakes can take a toll on your rankings!
About Novicell
If your organisation’s website is not performing organically, we’re here to help. At Novicell, we seamlessly integrate into your team to understand your businesses unique challenges and goals and develop a strategy that works for you. We are seasoned consultants in SEO for businesses across a wide range of industries, ready to catapult your low-performing website to the top of the ranks. Our team is full of experts in everything from backend development to web optimisation to user experience and so much more. Let us optimise your business today!