Wondering why you aren’t getting much website traffic?

A quick and informative article on why not and what you can do.

What is Search engine optimization?

Also known as SEO, it is the art of making your website more likely to appear in search results for a particular word or phrase, enabling your site to receive more valuable traffic. It is also known as the “organic” Google listings rather than the paid search listings. In other words, the free, main list on the left side of the Google search page, as everything on the right, costs money.

Why do I need it?

Each time someone puts a search term into Google, the robots literally scurry off and find the best pages that fit that term the closest, decide which order to place them, and bring them back.  They use a list of criteria that Google keep close to their chest, but the basics are known. If you want to be in the top 3 pages, your site needs to be optimized properly. If the Google robots can’t find you, you’re toast. Your website will be buried with the millions of others and only ever seen when someone puts your actual address into the browser bar. The areas we can work on include the vitally important content, meta description, meta keywords, page titles, H1 tags, image alt tags, and links.

Why wasn’t this done when I bought my website?

A new website build usually follows a pattern, which may be the same experience as your own. You find a website designer or website builder and agree on a style and rough page content. The designer does a great looking job with the images etc and you love it. They will then probably ask you for the text that you want on your site because you know your business right? You put some text together about what you do and your team, a few contact details and hey presto, your done. The web person will then cut and paste it into the required pages, and it’s done. Sound familiar?

There was no thought about what the content should really say, the persuasive route the visitor should take, no way of updating or adding more content yourself at a later date and which keywords should be used. Unfortunately, Google and the other search engines don’t search by great, good looking websites, but follow quite a complicated algorithm.

As long as it looks great and you are happy with it, that is usually all the designer wants to achieve. Whether any one visits your site is of no concern to them. Would a builder who builds shops care if any customers came? No.

How do I get it to work then?

There are areas that can be changed very easily, with a bit of research and know how. You will need someone to do it for you in most cases, but it is not usually a long process. An SEO specialist is what you need and there are hundreds. What is important to mention here is that it may still need “tweaking” in the future, so It’s a good idea to make a start now. The more you can learn and do yourself, the better and cheaper it will be for you. Blue Banana  run courses on doing it your self which may be an option for you.

When you have made the important changes, you need to monitor it. Google analytics is free to install but you will need to give the coding to your web person to load into your site. This package has a wide range of information available about your site, such as how many people visit your site, which pages they look at, which pages they leave from, and where they came from in the first place. You will then have some very valuable information for the future success of your website.

All is not lost; things can usually be changed very easily. If you want to find out more about getting your website working better, give us a call.