By: Richard Heyes, Managing Director and Founder of Tecmark, SEO agency in Manchester
If you’re a website owner of any kind, you’ve probably considered improving your organic traffic (and if not, you should).
Simply having a website for your business and throwing it up on the internet is not sufficient to get people to take notice.
Things like paid advertising and product advertising can give you a boost, but it can be difficult for startups and small businesses to fund a budget and sustain a healthy flow of website visitors.
While driving as much traffic as possible to a website may seem like a good measure of success, the real key to success is in gaining high-quality, organic traffic that reaches customers at crucial points in their customer journey.
If you’re looking to gain a steady flow of converting customers to your website that lasts in the long term, investing in search engine optimisation to increase your organic traffic may be the key.
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic refers to any visitors to your website that have come from a search engine results page.
Once a user types a query into Google, Google’s algorithm scans millions of indexed pages to find and present the most relevant landing pages to the intent of the query.
Search engine optimisation works to optimise content, website structure, and user experience combined to increase the online visibility of websites and highly relevant organic traffic.
H2: What are the advantages of improving organic traffic?
H3: Lower Costs
Increasing organic traffic through SEO allows businesses that don’t have to have a ton of budget for pay-per-click advertising (PPC) to get seen on Google – SEO is cheaper in the long term, thanks to its often evergreen strategies.
With proper implementation of SEO strategies, businesses can increase both visitors and leads, without having to pay through the nose for PPC ads.
H3: Increased Conversions
Improving your visibility on Google means that your business’s website will have a better chance of being seen for search terms and keywords that are highly relevant to you.
If your SEO strategy involves advanced keyword targeting and high-quality content, you should have no problem in attracting an audience that wants exactly what you’re offering.
H3: Improved User Experience
Anyone familiar with Google’s recent algorithm updates in the last couple of years knows the increased focus being placed on user experience.
Google seeks to provide its users with the most seamless search experience possible, and if your website provides users with a 404 error, slow site speed, or simply spammy appearances, your rankings will suffer.
This is even more apparent since the recent Page Experience update from May, which will reward those pages that create an optimal user experience, and take note of websites that have increased bounce rates, small session durations, etc, negatively ranking those pages.
“We find that business owners who have left SEO out of their strategy feel behind – and we’re inclined to agree with them! The benefits of improving your organic search presence are innumerable, impacting not only your website, but your brand perception and overall user experience, as well.”
H2: Best Ways to Increase Online Traffic
Ready to improve your organic traffic? Let’s discuss some of the things you can do to start improving your SEO, attract organic traffic, and maintain it long term.
H3: Post High-Quality Content
“Content is King” – a familiar phrase for anyone in the world of SEO, but there’s a reason it stuck. Creating great content that is engaging and informative is absolutely essential to SEO success. No matter the industry, consistent content marketing is key to attracting the types of customers you want, whether it’s through blogging, ebooks, or increased landing pages.
Unfortunately, content marketing and its value is often misunderstood by business and website owners. But the reality is, your content options are limitless.
A great place to start is with a blog – these are easily implemented using a CMS, such as WordPress, and will allow you to have a direct channel to communicate with your customers. You can provide FAQs, how-to guides, product reviews, promotions, company updates and so much more!
Keeping a consistent flow of high-quality content is one of the most proven ways to increase organic traffic.
H3: Improve your Technical Foundations
Building up your content resources will have minimal value if your website’s technical issues aren’t in order!
Technical SEO, just one pillar of search engine optimisation, ensures that your website meets any technical requirements of ranking. This could be anything to do with indexing, crawling, site speed, website architecture, schema markup, security, and much more.
If your website’s technical aspects aren’t up to scratch, you’ll be preventing your website from ranking as efficiently as possible and losing out on invaluable organic traffic.
H3: Optimise for SEO
Another important element of SEO is ensuring your content is well optimised for search engines – this starts with keyword research.
You should perform keyword research using any number of tools, from SEMrush, AHrefs, or even Google’s Keyword Planner, to identify what search terms people are using when searching for your product/service. Be sure to consider the intent of the keyword and ensure it closely aligns with the content of your page.
Once you’ve nailed your target keyword, ensure it’s used (as naturally as possible) in your main content, title, headings, and even in your meta descriptions. It’s important to not go overboard with getting keywords in – we call this “keyword stuffing”, and it is a big no-no for Google.
As we say in the industry, “Always write for users, not for search engines.”
Pro Tip: Include internal and external links where possible that are relevant to your industry. These send authority signals to Google for both your website and the website you’re pointing to.
H3: Use Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific keywords (usually 4+ words) that users are more likely to search when they’re further down the customer funnel.
For example, if your business sells a range of office supplies, you may struggle to rank near the top of the SERPs for such a broad keyword. Even if you do rank, with the intent of the keyword being so vague – users could be looking for information or a transaction – you might find that you’ve increased organic traffic but finding fewer users convert.
But for a keyword like “ergonomic office chair with lumbar support”, the users know exactly what they’re looking for are likely prepared to pay for it, not to mention you’ll see far less competition in trying to rank for a long-tail keyword.
These can also be used to lead your content strategy and increase your authority on a subject. Long-tail keywords often involve questions and in-depth topics that can easily be turned into a blog post or landing page.
With a smart implementation of long-tail keywords, you may pull in less traffic overall, but the ROI will be much higher – you’ll be attracting exactly the audience you’re looking for, and that audience will be far closer to purchasing.
H2: Improving Organic Traffic for Online Businesses
With the impact of COVID-19 and the increase of online businesses and shoppers, driving highly relevant traffic to your website is key to your success. If you’re missing a well-planned SEO strategy for your inbound marketing, get started or risk getting left behind!
Wanda Rich has been the Editor-in-Chief of Global Banking & Finance Review since 2011, playing a pivotal role in shaping the publication’s content and direction. Under her leadership, the magazine has expanded its global reach and established itself as a trusted source of information and analysis across various financial sectors. She is known for conducting exclusive interviews with industry leaders and oversees the Global Banking & Finance Awards, which recognize innovation and leadership in finance. In addition to Global Banking & Finance Review, Wanda also serves as editor for numerous other platforms, including Asset Digest, Biz Dispatch, Blockchain Tribune, Business Express, Brands Journal, Companies Digest, Economy Standard, Entrepreneur Tribune, Finance Digest, Fintech Herald, Global Islamic Finance Magazine, International Releases, Online World News, Luxury Adviser, Palmbay Herald, Startup Observer, Technology Dispatch, Trading Herald, and Wealth Tribune.