Some time ago, websites could just spam and achieve success. However, after the introduction of website ranking and algorithms, this is not an option anymore. So, how to increase blog traffic today? Check out our tips.
The real SEO
Until now, the biggest attention in SEO was paid to organic rankings and increasing traffic. These were the 2 main KPIs, which are displayed to customers. There are several most frequently used major factors that will ensure good optimization (in On-Page and Off-Page options): keyword density, meta titles, meta description, number of backlinks, etc. After changes, websites started to look for alternative methods of attracting more visitors to their pages. Some of them work and some of them just look like it works if you do not analyse your results.
Below you can find few pitfalls that can lead you to the wrong results:
- Adding directories increases the number of backlinks, but not the traffic itself. (Except for some of the major directories).
- PR-articles placement increase the number of backlinks, but the traffic on your site. (Or you would have to pay for good quality thematic resource with good attendance).
- On-Page optimization increases the traffic to the site only to a certain point; depending on the competition, and, of course, Google and Yandex updates.
- Properly used bookmarks can also send some website traffic and increase the number of links. Although if you just add a link without an active account, they will not work so well.
- Comments on third party sites are useful, but they will not increase traffic to your site significantly.
The organic question that arises after this analysis is “which methods actually work in order to increase my website traffic?”. This is what we are going to disqcuss in this article.
11 tips to improve the website traffic
Despite the fact that the off-page-factors have more weight than the on-page, in SEO there is enough of other features, which would help to increase traffic to the site even without using the links.
1. Quality articles
Quality articles that meet Google’s requirements, can bring a good traffic. A number of companies have noticed an increase in their traffic by 10% after starting using this tactic.
Quality content is the main secret of having stable traffic and high rankings in SERP. Such articles have always been an effective tactic for increasing and engaging your audience. But under the new rules, their their value will only increase. Qualitatively designed and written content can potentially bring higher CTR, referrals, social activities, links (which still work), as well as brand awareness on the Internet.
2. Increased usability and better overall impression from the site
Google’s algorithm Panda punishes poor quality sites. It knows how satisfied are the visitors of the particular online resource and whether they enjoy it or not. The best proof that the site pleases your visitors is duration of clicks. When the user is searching for something in Google and selects one of the top sites in the SERP and never returns to the search again means that he has found what he was looking for and this counts as the best outcome you can receive.
Many SEO-experts believe that if you can ensure that the user remains on your site and does not return to the search, Google will reward you with a higher position in SERP.
3. Advanced snippets
Video Marking and authorship in snippets helps to increase the number of clicks. This will help to broaden the ways and possibilities for users to come to your website.
4. Video optimisation
Video snippets fills much more space in the search results than any other snippets, even such as photos of the authors. Moreover, video snippets are much easier to display. They do not require a mandatory reference in Google+.
5. Authorship in Google
The existence of photos of the author in the SERP does not guarantee website clicks itself. However, properly selected picture, in many cases can increase CTR.
Google has became more selective in terms of which authors to show. However, if you use the concept of authorship in Google correctly, you may see yourself in 20% of all search results, including photos of the authors.
6. Site speed improvement
Improving site speed not only improves the overall experience for the visitors, but also it has a direct impact on the ranking results and traffic.
According to Google, site speed optimization is particularly important when it comes to mobile devices. It is necessary to take into account the characteristics of the mobile Internet and data transmission.
7. SEO for smartphones
Google confirmed that if the site is not optimized for mobile devices and provides errors, it is more likely to receive a relatively low position in the SERP. Google recommends to make responsive or adaptive design of the site. Depending on which device the user is directed to your site, he sees either a standard or a mobile version of it.
8. Increasing audience by countries
The possibility of increasing your traffic by appearing in other countries’ searches can be impressive as the competition will be much lower. To determine whether country’s market is worth investing into it, look at the international SEO checklist.
9. Social annotations on Google+
If you share your content on Facebook and Twitter, the audience sees the updates only when they are in social networks. If you do it on Google+, the audience sees them every time they search on Google. Moreover, the content distributed via Google+, and ranked in the search results is available to all Google users, regardless of whether they are members of your community on Google+ or not.
10. Updating your Content
Sites that do no longer get new links, lose their positions in Google. On the other hand, the resources, which are not updating content or have very little of it, as well can hardly expect a good positions in SERP. Updating content does not guarantee the position improvement in the SERP. But it will definitely help for a variety of queries.
11. Regular SEO
All the factors, which we have described above are just a small part of the criteria to achieve a high ranking in the SERP. Factors such as indexing, canonicalization, duplicate content, site architecture, keywords, inbound links, optimization of images and thousands of other determine your position in the SERP. With this in mind, the technical SEO tasks become more complex. The good news is that there are more opportunities than ever before.
Test it!
The best way of knowing what works for your better is to test it. You can select several different methods and see what works for you better. Constant improvement and testing will definitely help you to reach the desired goals.
Photo credit: www.nogran.sk via Foter.com / CC BY
