Increase Your Website Traffic For Free! 

OCTOBER 30, 2017

|IN SEO

|BY ASSET DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

If there is one question that small business owners are asking themselves, it’s about learning how to increase website traffic for free. When it comes to website development, what many business owners are not aware of is that generating organic traffic is considerably technical and requires some practice and patience.

The most common methodology to increase web traffic is through something known as search engine optimization. SEO is the practice of optimizing your entire website so that the internet and search engines can properly track your website and provide that information to your consumers. So, when a small business owner is not careful in developing their website, it can harm or prevent search engines from even tracking their website.

As we begin to explore the different facets of Search Engine Optimization, we understand that some of the technicalities may be difficult. That should not be discouraging though! With this information and practice implementing new search engine strategies, you can increase web traffic and thereby transform your business.

Website Mistakes That Lower Your Traffic

You can easily develop and create the most beautiful website but without proper search engine optimization or website optimization, no one will be able to see it! While word of mouth and purposely telling people about your website may stimulate a couple of visitors a month, for true success and high-traffic volumes, SEO is key. So, let’s look at a few common website mistakes that even you are probably guilt of.

1. Bad User Experience

A bad user experience encompasses the whole design of the website itself, which we ensure through our Web Development & Design service, never happens to our clients.

Overall, this experience can include:

• Slow loading speeds
• Unattractive visuals (either too busy or too much white space)
• Not mobile friendly
• Contact info is difficult to find
• Low quality images of products or services
• Incomplete web pages
• Confusing navigation

This valuable information will be what Google, Yahoo!, or Bing gathers to determine the rank and quality of your webpage. All this data becomes a branch in a search engine’s algorithm, which can either enhance or harm your website traffic. It’s that imperative to insure your website promotes a high-quality user experience in order to increase web traffic.

Tips to Enhance Your User Experience:

• Use only high-quality images resized for faster loading speeds.
• Try a loading speed test booster to figure out which areas of your website need help.
• Make sure your website is not too wordy.
• Make sure you do not have too much white space.
• Include an easy Contact area.
• Include your main keyword on your home page, in headers, and on the sidebar.

2. Boring, Wordy Content

The essence of your website’s success is how well you describe and word your mission to your audience. Like a cover letter for a job accompanied by a well-written and organized resume, your content on your website is your cover letter and the website is your resume. With that said, one of the many common mistakes when trying to increase web traffic is having over extensive descriptions, about sections, contact areas, product descriptions, services sections, or keyword heavy text. This is will bore your audience!

Tips to Enhance Your Online Content

• Immediately share with your audience the benefits of your product or service.
• Keep it friendly and inviting.
• Answer common questions whether through the website or an FAQ page.
• Keep your content short and concise.
• Provide testimonies or reviews.
• Keep all your information appealing and relatable to their particular likes and needs.
• Do not make it difficult to find the information they are looking for.

 3.  Not Mobile Friendly and Responsive

This may just be one of the most important aspects of modern web design. When it comes to increasing web traffic for your business, you need a mobile friendly and responsive website. With the massive penetration of mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, computer engagement has lost the digital media battle to mobile by 65%. Essentially, people utilize their phones and tablets more than anything else. Therefore, if your website is not mobile friendly, it can severely hurt your chances of increasing web traffic. Keep in mind, search engines have developed algorithms that specifically look for mobile-friendly websites – one that is not will not perform or generate traffic as planned.

TIP: We offer lots of great Web Development & Design options that are geared towards ensuring your website is mobile and tablet friendly!

Now that we’ve looked at the three most common mistakes that can harm your website’s ability to drive online traffic to your website, let’s look at some tips on how to drive traffic to your website for free.

Strategies to Increase Web Traffic for Free

Essentially, a business cannot thrive without the many people that need their service or product. With that said, these people cannot access a business unless they are utilizing different methods to drive web traffic. In addition to social media marketing and advertising online, there are numerous methods for which you can drive traffic to your website, many for free.

1. Utilize Social Media

Think of social media as a form of free marketing, if done correctly. With social media you can reach a large target audience with a simple post, picture, or Tweet. To do this properly, and for free, the goal is to optimize the value of your posts alongside the time of day you are posting. If you can provide high-value at a high-volume time, you should notice a significant increase in your social media activity and website traffic.

For example, on Instagram you can utilize hashtags to ensure your photo reaches a larger audience that are searching for that hashtag. With Pinterest you can pin your work to community pin boards that, in turn, may result in more views. By properly utilizing social media you can increase your website traffic for free in no time. Keep in mind, through creating social media accounts and actively posting, you are creating a digital footprint, which can only enhance search engine optimization.

2. Optimize Your SEO, Per Post, and Per Page

Search Engine Optimization has long been known to cause headaches, due to the many different algorithms and logistics that go into ensuring your website is properly optimized for search engines. Today, depending on your content management system, there are many plug-ins designed to help beginners with understanding search engine optimization for a post or page.

For you to optimize each post for search engines, here are some great tips:

• Make sure your keyword populates your ALT text.
• Ensure your meta description includes your keyword.
• Use keywords in H1 and H2 headers.
• Create inbound and outbound links to new content.

3. Guest Blog on Other Websites

Guest blogging has long been for debate as to if it is an effective method to increase website traffic. The truth is that guest blogging on, a reputable website or company, can dramatically increase your website traffic for free. With more backlinks directed towards your site, the more search engines will recognize that your website is driving traffic. Therefore, if you happen to have the opportunity to guest blog for a reputable company, do so. This is a great opportunity for collaborations.

4. Have A Blog

Some of the most notorious companies have incorporated blogging because of the organic traffic opportunities. Blogging has the power to significantly increase web traffic, as, every blog that includes your keywords, you can climb the ladder of Search Engine Rankings. With more blogs that have been properly optimized for search engines, the more chances your website has of being ranked on Google or Bing.

5. Constant Content

When it comes to driving website traffic for free, there is no better way than to develop high-quality and high-value content. In fact, the only way to get ranked on search engines is through developing more and more content that are embedded with high-volume keywords. We believe that one of the best ways to begin creating a constant stream of content is through creating a “content game-play” or content strategy. The goal with this is to write down all the different content ideas that you can use for your website. From there, create a map of when you can write the content and begin scheduling the posts out over the month. For best practices, its highly suggested to write enough content for a few months in advance, while also always remembering to do some quality-keyword searches, ensuring your keywords are still trending.

6. Copywriting, Meta-description, and Headlines

Whether you wrote a post for a guest blog post, designed the meta-description for your website, or a social media post with a headline, you must be able to capture your audience’s attention. This is where a formal content management plan or content marketing plans comes in handy. Through intriguing copywriting, you can create engaging and appealing headlines, meta-descriptions, or great call-to-actions that will hook more readers, resulting in more traffic. Consider this: 8 out of 10 people will read a headline and bypass the rest of your ad and text. It’s clear that an effective copywriting strategy is imperative to grab your readers attention and driving web traffic.

7. The Power of Influencer Marketing

One of the newest forms of marketing is Influencer Marketing. An influencer is a person on social media with a large following who can potentially influence their audience to buy a product through sponsorship. Finding the right influencer can be the bridge between 1,000 views and 5,000 views on your online website. You can find influencers by donating a bit of time to social media, utilizing hash-tags that relate to your brand or business.

With that, once you have found an influencer with a large following, you can begin to develop a business relationship that involves sharing each other’s work, asking questions, and showing them, you are interested in their work. From there, have a mutual exchange of services such as posting content or they may receive a complimentary product for marketing your business to their audience. If successful, you may gain thousands of new fans and followers.

8. Contests and Promotions

Running contests and promotions are one way to increase web traffic. It creates a community of people that feel that you are not solely focused on making a profit but rather about culminating a relationship. With that said, a contest can enhance your brand appearance and even help develop a quality email-marketing list. The more your business can promote your contest through social media platforms, free or paid, word of mouth, online engagement, blogs, or any other method of advertisement, the more people will sign up for the contest or promotion. This gives you more quality leads that you can market and engage with, even after the contest or promotion is finished.

One Last Tip: Strong Keyword Strategy

The best advice we can give anyone is to do your keyword research. Have a solid keyword strategy from the outset. By doing this, you will remove the many worries that may come later when trying to optimize your website properly. This will undoubtedly take significantly longer!

The team at Asset Digital Communications, Toronto’s Top Social Media Marketing Agency,  is here to make your optimization process enjoyable, easy to understand, and synonymous with your brand. If you are unsure where your website stands regarding search engines, let us help and provide an in-depth analysis and begin improving the sales and performance of your website and marketing efforts. Schedule your FREE audit today!

Finally, I've just released a brand new guide that's going to help you get more traffic to your website! It's Called: Traffic Machine - 5 Powerful Strategies to Increase Website Traffic!!

You can take a look and grab your copy here: Increase Your Website Traffic