16 Simple Tips For Boosting Your Website & Blog Traffic

Here are a few key tricks any modern online marketer should know - to boost their site traffic and attract more leads for their business:

1.   A Strong and Relevant Keyword Strategy

Think, what type of keywords or word-combination you would like to be found by. Now, reflect whether your target audience would use the same keywords when searching for you and your services online. If these two lists don’t match, you have some research and work to do.

2.   Catchy Headlines

Did you know that on average, 8 out of 10 users read your headline, but only 2 out of those 10 will click on your link and go read your entire article? When choosing a title for your post, even while writing a snippet for your social media shares - put some thought into it. Make it attractive, intriguing or/and useful. Need more tips? Check out THIS quick guide from our friends at Flothemes on How To Write Catchy Headlines That Will Attract More Readers.

3.   Post the Right Content

Putting out content that is interesting only to you will not cut it. Sure, you need to be genuine, share your opinion, experience and feelings about certain topics, but don’t forget that you also post for your readers/clients and potential clients. Focus on them! What would they be interested to read about and possibly share with their own audience? Again, don’t forget to include your keywords ;)

4.   Keep in Mind Mobile

In the era of advanced mobile technology, people are no longer browsing solely on their computers. Make sure your website looks and works smoothly across all devices and browsers. There are plenty of apps and tools you can use to check your site’s responsiveness. For example - Browserstack or Mobile test.

5.   Post Regularly

Consistency and persistence are two magic habits you have to follow. Posting regularly and failing to stop even when there are no noticeable results is key here. If you keep creating content, posting regularly (say at least once a week) and following all steps from this list - it’s only a matter of time till a significant boost in interest, engagement, and traffic hit you.  

6.   Timing is Important

If you always post at the same time on certain social media platforms (check timing trends for each social platform HERE) it will develop a habit for your readers to visit your website/accounts regularly, checking for updates and new interesting content.

7.   Trigger Emotions

There is a wide range of emotions you can experiment with when creating meaningful content. You can try entertaining your audience with fun posts, inspire them through emotional content, educate them with some useful articles and information. You can even trigger anger if it’s a more debatable topic. Remember, emotions call to action (sharing or commenting on your posts in this case), or at least make you stand out.  

8.   Subscribe to Google Alerts

It’s easy and it’s free. Create alerts for certain words. You will then receive notifications from Google, each time there’s a post containing your name or the keywords that you’ve chosen to monitor. You can do it from HERE. 

9.   Use Pinterest

If your product/service is visual - Pinterest is a great playground for you. As reported by Comscore, people who use Pinterest are 30% more likely to shop online than non-Pinterest users. Therefore, it’s a strategic platform to showcase your work and push more traffic towards your site.

10.   Share New Posts on Your Social Networks

What’s the point in spending time and effort, writing the perfect article when you don’t help it get more exposure. And please don’t limit your promo efforts only to social shares. Tag relevant people/vendors/brands which are mentioned in your posts. Reach out to folks who may be interested in your topic and kindly ask them to check out your article. If they like it suggest them to share it.

11.   Test Your Site’s Loading Speed

Many site owners underestimate the importance of site speed as a ranking factor. Users won’t stick around if your pages take forever to load. They will leave your site, pushing up your bounce rate and harming your “time on site” indicators. This is bad for your SEO and you lose positions on search result pages. To avoid this, you need to test and improve the loading speed of your site. Large images are one of the predominant reasons for slow loading speed. To sort this out, we suggest benefiting from various tools and software that help reduce image size, without harming the quality. For instance - jpeg files can be optimized with JPEGmini, while png files with Tinypng. If you are in search of a free solution, just export all of your images from Photoshop via the “save for web” option at a 80-70% quality. Also, check our SEO Guide for Squarespace HERE.

12.   Nurture a Sense of Community

People have a strong need for belonging and want to feel that they are part of something bigger. Give your readers a reason to want to be in your “community”. What type of value are you offering them? Interact with and love your site visitors and commenters! No matter who, where or how - people love being acknowledged. This will create a domino effect and encourage more of your audience to engage with your site and posts. Take time to reply and show appreciation to those who left a comment. This is your first step towards building a long term relationship with your audience.

13.   Internal and External Links

Make sure you link your readers to your previous posts when relevant. This does not only prolong the time that a user spends on your site but also increases the value they get from you - as you offer more content that interests them. External links can also have a positive impact on your SEO and ranking. If you back-link to strong SEO wise websites, they offer you more credibility. Also, mentioning known brands/vendors may bring some great collaborations, cross-promotion offers and shares with potential new leads coming your way.   

14.   Run Giveaways and Contests

When you give out something of value people will be naturally drawn to it. Contests will most likely entice them to check out your website and see what you offer. Whether you decide to give out an eBook, workshop seat, a course or a tutorial, make sure your users find it useful and exciting. As a result, your visitors will keep coming back, and hopefully, bring/tag their friends along.

15.   Stock Websites?

You could share some of your imagery on free stock photography websites. Usually, these sites credit the photographers with links to their website. Again, new traffic and leads!

16.   Your Website Design

Last but not least, have a well polished and beautiful website design. Who doesn’t like to stare and share beautiful things, right?

If you can only take five things from this list, let them be these: the most important components for driving traffic to your website are - valuable content, a user-friendly and a fast loading site, consistency with your posts and a strong relationship with your site visitors. Keep learning and testing new approaches, and be patient as Rome was not built over one night!

Squaremuse Team.