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If You Build It, They Won't Come: 11 Truths About Online Traffic

Melissa Thompson
business.com Member
Oct 05, 2015

Today’s business owners and marketers are being asked to do more with less. More marketing with less budget. Generating consumer demand and increasing revenue with fewer resources.

Luckily, there’s a secret weapon that can be used to boost web traffic and revenue. In order to do more with less, you’ll need to have your arsenal stocked with Search Engine Marketing. By learning to make the most of your web traffic, you’ll be armed with the strategies needed to reach today’s computer prone culture.

Let’s look at a few ways in which you can increase high-quality traffic:

Related Article: Free Traffic, Anyone? Adapting Your Content Strategy for Increased Blog Visits

Create Fascinating Content

Creating content for the sake of creating content is a quick road to nowhere in business. In order to be in a good place with Google’s search algorithms, your content should be high-quality, engaging, and not only just to keywords your base is searching for.

Your content should be in line with the needs and wants of your customer base. Utilize white papers, case studies and tutorials. These rank better with Google, and will in turn bring you more organic web traffic.

Select Keywords Strategically

Everyone wants to use popular keywords, but the problem with that is that these types of search terms are highly competitive. Make the most of your keywords by choosing ones that are attainable. Instead of using “best widget factory,” use keywords with your location.

For instance, “widget factory Topeka” will garner more clicks in searches.

Don’t Use Black Hat SEO Approaches

Black hat SEO approaches include keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages, and more. Using these tactics will only hurt your search engine rankings, and possibly get you banned from Google altogether.

Instead of resorting to these tactics, stick with creating compelling content that meets the needs of your customer base. It’s also important to know that putting more effort into creating high-quality web traffic is going to get you more conversions in the long run.

Demote Irrelevant Google Sitelinks

Demoting the URLs that you don’t want to be displayed is one way of getting rid of site links automatically generated by Google. In order to do this, go to Google Webmaster Tools, and access “Sitelinks” under the “Configuration” menu.

Google Webmaster tools

Then, go the "For this search result box", and enter the URL that you would like to demote.Make sure to enter in the exact site link URL that you want to remove from the listing. Finally, go to the Demote this site link URL box, complete the URL of the site link that you’d like to remove and click on the red Demote button.

Google Sitelinks

Google doesn’t guarantee that they will honor your request, but they will try to make it possible.

Post More Frequently

Posting high-quality content 6 times a week, as opposed to 5, increases blog traffic by 18.6%, according to Neil Patel of QuickSprout. This is a simple step you can take to increase your web traffic.

Six posts a week might not be right for your business, but find out which number works, and stick with following through. These results are scalable in many instances.

Get Social

Creating great content isn’t enough if nobody is reading it. Instead, go through social media to make sure people find it. Using Twitter, Google+ and Facebook to promote your posts is one of the best ways to increase web traffic.

Twitter is great for short and quick links. Google+ can help your site show up in personalized search results. For B2C, use image-heavy sites like Pinterest and Instagram.

Be a Guest Blogger

Guest posting on a reputable blog can increase web traffic to your site and also increase brand awareness. Just make sure you’re writing quality content, not spammy stuff because that could get you into trouble.

Stick with tutorials and other content that will be of interest to the readers of the blog that you’re guest posting on. In addition, you should invite others to guest post on your blog.

After all, guest posting is a two-way street. And as mentioned before, post only the high-quality, non-spammy stuff to your blog because Google is penalizing low-quality guest posts.

Post Content to LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers much more these days than just a place to look for another job. You can use LinkedIn to increase your web traffic by publishing content there. linkedIn is actually the world’s largest social network, and by posting to it regularly, you can just wait for the increased web traffic to start.

Related Article: How to Make Your LinkedIn Content Irresistible

Your Site Should Be Responsive

Make sure that your site is accessible across multiple digital devices, especially smartphones. Statistics show that more and more people are using mobile devices to conduct web searches, and using desktop devices less. Making customers navigate your desktop site on a mobile device is basically the same thing as telling them to take their business elsewhere.

Submit Your Content to Sites Like Reddit

Before you start submitting spammy content to sites like Reddit, you should be aware that users of sites like these are pretty savvy when it comes to posting that kind of stuff in place of legitimate content. Once you’ve come up with content of value to members of these communities, choose a relevant subreddit and submit your content.

If you have to hire someone to take care of everything in this article, it will be worth it. There are plenty of Virtual Assistants who can do most of these things. Not only will you see the results of increased web traffic, but you’ll see the conversion of these site visitors into long-time customers and fans of your brand.

Image Credit: NanoStockk / Getty Images
Melissa Thompson
business.com Member
Melissa Thompson is a freelance producer at CNN and a contributor at Technorati and NewsBlaze. She lives in Utah with her 2 children and enjoys skiing, hiking, working out, and sushi.