If you’re looking for ways to increase traffic to your website, you’re in the right place. In this blog post, we’re going to share with you 17 SEO tactics that you can use to drive more traffic to your website.
Try these SEO techniques if you want to increase traffic to your website
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of increasing your website’s search rankings. It’s not rocket science, but it does require a lot of work. And there’s nothing worse than spending tons of time and effort building a great site only to find out it’s not ranking highly in the SERPs.
That’s why I created this list of 17 SEO tactics. These tips will help make your site more visible to search engines and ultimately bring more visitors to your site. If you want to learn how to get higher rankings on search engines, then read on. In this article, I will share 17 proven SEO techniques that work every single time.
Research: Learn what your competitors do well and then try to emulate their successes
Researching your competitors is an essential step in any SEO campaign. This is because it gives you an understanding of how they operate and where they rank for similar keywords. This allows you to make informed decisions regarding your own strategy and tactics.
The best way to do this is to find out which pages they’re ranking for. Then, look at those pages and analyse them. What makes them successful? Why did they rank well?
What can you learn from these pages? Are there any mistakes that could help you improve your own page? These answers will give you valuable insights into how to optimise your site.
You’ll also be able to identify areas where you can focus more effort. For example, if you see that your competitor ranks highly for a particular keyword phrase, but doesn’t appear to have much traffic, it may indicate that they aren’t targeting relevant keywords.
In addition, you might discover that they haven’t optimised for long-tail phrases. Long-tail keywords tend to drive higher conversion rates, so optimising for them can significantly boost your rankings.
How does your website compare to theirs? Look at the overall structure of both sites. Do they share common features? Are there differences between the two?
Don’t forget to analyse their social media presence. This will give you an idea of their engagement levels and whether there is an opportunity for you to build your own following on social media.
You don’t need any special tools to do competitor research, but it does take time.
In addition, you should try and identify if your competitors have a content strategy or are following a content plan. This will give you a better understanding of the scale of the task ahead or indeed the size of the opportunity.
You’ll also need to gain an understanding of their branding and marketing. Who is the brand leader in the space? How much are they spending on advertising? What other marketing techniques are they employing?
What’s your unique selling proposition (USP)? This will give you an idea as to how you can position yourself in the marketplace?
Once you’ve done your homework you’ll be able to make informed decisions regarding your own website design and marketing strategy.
These are just some of the reasons as to why it’s important to conduct thorough research on your competitors. You might even consider hiring someone to help you with this task.
But, if you don’t research your competition you may find yourself outgunned when it comes to gaining traffic and conversions.
Find content gaps and discover keywords that no one else has written about yet
Content gaps are often overlooked when creating pieces of content for your website. But they are an important aspect of any successful SEO campaign. By identifying these keyword gaps and filling them with relevant content, you’ll increase traffic and conversions.
What is a content gap?
Content gaps are areas where there is little or no information available online. These are places where you can create value for your customers.
They are also great opportunities to promote your business and increase traffic to your site.
You may find that these gaps exist because nobody knows how to fill them.
The key to finding content gaps is to look for topics that are popular but which lack quality content. This means that there are lots of articles and blog posts about the topic, but few of them are well-written or useful.
This is a perfect opportunity to step in and provide valuable informational content that fills the gap.
But finding these relevant keywords isn’t easy. So where do you begin?
The answer is to look beyond the obvious and involves serious keyword research (more on this later). Your goal is to find hidden gems that nobody knows about. These are the keywords that are going to help you dominate your niche. To do this you’ll have to understand the search intent behind the search query.
Once you’ve identified the right keywords, you need to create valuable content. Quite often this is providing answers to the questions people are asking.
This means creating informational content that solves problems and provides value. People aren’t going to click on links unless they feel there is a benefit to clicking on them.
Get to know your audience better than they know themselves
The statement “know your audience” is relevant for any business. If you are providing a product or service, you need to understand who your customers are and what they need from you. In SEO terms, ‘know your audience’ simply means more keyword research. We want to know as much about the customer journey as possible. And we want to connect with prospects at as many touch points as possible.
In reality, this means we’re creating content for ‘top of funnel’, middle and bottom of funnel. We do this by building out content ideas from a long list of keywords that we’ve identified during keyword research. You can use keyword clusters to develop a content plan for blog posts and other content types such as infographics or videos.
Find out the daily SEO tasks you should do and how they can increase website traffic.
We’ll sometimes get asked ‘How do I increase keywords on my website’ or ‘how do I increase organic keywords on my website’. But those aren’t really the right questions. The better question is: ‘how do I increase the number of qualified visitors to my website and increase the conversion rate’?
At the end of the day, you don’t want to create content around ‘keywords’, you want to create intent-based content that your customers find valuable. Keyword research allows you to gain a better understanding of your audience, the search terms they use and their search intent. And of course, any content you create that is valuable to your audience will include your target keywords or long-tail keywords.
Use your keyword ideas to create high quality content.
Note: Information that is valuable to your audience can turn them into customers.
Content marketing is an essential component of any SEO strategy. If done right, it can help drive more visitors to your site, increase engagement, and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates. Learn about the role of a freelance SEO consultant and how their strategies can increase website traffic.
But creating great content isn’t easy. There are countless factors involved, including time constraints, budget limitations, and even personal preferences.
In fact, when we asked colleagues and friends for their favourite type of content, we found that there wasn’t much consensus. Some loved long-form articles, while others preferred short posts. Others enjoyed infographics, while others preferred videos.
The point is that there are endless ways to create engaging content, and each method offers its own set of benefits.
How to Create Compelling Content That Drives Traffic To Your Website
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate leads and sales. It’s a great way to build your business and attract new customers. But if you’re writing bad content, you’ll never get anywhere.
Remember, content marketing is the process of producing and distributing valuable free content online that solves problems and builds trust with potential customers. It includes everything from blog posts to videos to ebooks to infographics to social media updates. The goal is to attract new visitors to your site who might become loyal long term customers.
But what makes good content so powerful? The best types of content resonate with its audience because it answers their questions, solves their problems, and fulfils their desires. In short, it helps them achieve their goals.
And when people read your content, they want to know two things:
- Does this content help me accomplish my goal?
- Do I trust this person who wrote this content?
If you don’t provide value to your readers, then you won’t convert them into buyers. And without conversions, you won’t grow your business. So make sure your content provides real value to your visitors.
The first step is to determine the types of content you want to produce. There’s no one right way to do this; it depends on your business model, target audience, and goals. But there are some general guidelines that should help get you started.
- Start with a clear understanding of your customer’s pain points (know your audience).
- Do research into their current interests and behaviours (keyword research).
- Decide whether you want to provide them with solutions or simply educate them (content strategy).
- Determine how you are going to market and sell your products or services to them. Are you going to target all stages of the customer value journey or go directly to the bottom of the funnel? (this is your content plan)
- Choose which channels you’ll use to distribute your content – you’ll start with your website and any other ‘owned’ channels such as social media. But you can also choose to be proactive e.g. email newsletters, paid advertising (display and PPC) and social media advertising.
Finally…
Writing for the web is a craft. But writing for the web isn’t easy. You’ve got to learn how to create content that sells. That means you’ve got to master the art of persuasion.
The best way to do that is to study the psychology behind why people buy. Why do we make decisions? What makes us respond to certain stimuli?
That’s where content marketing comes in. Because when you write content that appeals to human emotions, you’ll find yourself creating content that converts.
Understand the different web content roles and how they fit into content strategy frameworks.
Content marketing is more than just words on a page. It’s a whole strategy that includes visuals, videos, infographics, social media posts, email campaigns, blog articles, podcasts, and so on.
But there’s a big difference between writing great content and writing content that converts.
Writing great content is about crafting compelling stories that connect with readers. It’s about telling a story that resonates with them.
This is where the psychology of persuasion comes in. When you write content that connects with your reader, you’re able to persuade them to act.
To do that, you need to understand the psychology of persuasion. But that’s a blog post for another day!
Don’t forget, the key to SEO is consistency
Follow a content strategy to ensure you are creating content that supports your business objectives. Stick to your content plan and increase your output. And of course, maintain that consistency by blogging regularly. Discover 3 SEO strategies every business should be using and how they can increase website traffic.
Learn how to write articles that are easy to read
This is one of the greatest challenges a content marketer or SEO writer can face. Every client or business wants to generate more revenue or close more deals. But, that often requires patience. SEO often takes time to succeed, but great content can help speed that process up. So how do you write articles that are easy to read and help with business development?
The first step to writing good articles is to know what you want your article to say (what is your objective?).
Next, you need to understand your audience. Who are they and what do they want? You want to create content that resonates with your potential customers and you want them to trust you. So, give them what they want and provide them value.
However, that doesn’t really help you when it comes to creating articles that are easy to read. But you have to get the basics right first!
Clear objective: keep your article on point by having a clear direction. Don’t introduce other concepts unless they add value and drive the reader towards your goal.
With your objective in mind, what type of content do you think will work best? Informational content could be ‘how to’ guides, whilst persuasive copy could be used on a product landing page. Both of those pieces are targeting customers at different stages of the buying journey.
Content is not just words. So, can you package your non-visual content into different forms? Is a video better? What about an infographic? Always consider the needs of your customer and also consider what gets the job done.
Now to the actual writing…
Easy to read means having short sentences, paragraphs and subparagraphs. It also means having a clear flow of ideas. In other words: structure.
Headers and subheaders: make them snappy and punchy.
Keep your language simple and clear. Don’t use fancy vocabulary unless you really need to. People often assume that because something sounds complicated, it must be true. But this isn’t always the case; sometimes, the simplest explanation is actually the best.
And with that in mind, use phrases your customers ACTUALLY use. You’ll find these in your keyword research phase.
Finally, proofread everything. Even though you’ve done a lot of work, there’s always room for improvement.
And don’t forget your goal is to make the article easy to understand and interesting to read. If you don’t find it interesting and easy to read, then your customers probably won’t either.
Follow the ‘Inverted Pyramid‘ approach to your article
The ‘Inverted Pyramid’ style of writing places the most important information first. It’s also an effective way of keeping the reader focused on the main points of your article by providing clear structure and guidance to the reader.
The key is to give the reader what they want, as quickly as possible. This means they are more likely to keep reading and scrolling down the page. This is also considered ‘dwell time’ i.e. keeping the reader engaged for a longer period of time.
Try to create a compelling headline and a strong introduction. Then introduce the reader to supporting information through the use of subheadings and short paragraphs. The further the reader reads, the more they are learning. Of course, the goal is to provide them with information that they find useful and valuable.
One of the benefits to this approach is that it’s naturally easy to read. Articles written in the ‘Inverted Pyramid’ style are usually scannable and easy to follow.
Learn how to write content that grabs attention and keeps readers hooked
Writing good content is one thing, keeping your audience glued to your website is another. It’s easy to get caught up in writing great content when you think about what you want to say, but if you don’t know how to keep people reading then you might just end up wasting your time. So here are some tips to help you make sure that your content keeps people reading.
1. Make it Easy to Read
The first step towards making sure that your content keeps readers glued to their screens is to make sure that they can read it quickly. If someone wants to read something, they should be able to do so without having to struggle through any complicated layout, formatting or language.
The easiest way to achieve this is to use simple language and clear sentences. You could even try experimenting with different fonts and sizes to see which ones work best for you.
2. Use Visual Elements
Using images to illustrate points is a great way to grab people’s attention and show them exactly what you mean. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go out and buy expensive stock photography; there are plenty of free resources available online, such as Pixabay, where you can find beautiful photos for free.
3. Tell A Story
If you’re trying to tell a story, then you need to make sure that everything fits into place. There needs to be a beginning, middle and an end. And you need to make sure all the pieces fit together.
4. Add Emotion
People love stories. They love hearing about others’ experiences and seeing things from their point of view. Stories are powerful tools because they allow us to connect with other people and understand their feelings. When we hear a story, our brains automatically start looking for similarities between ourselves and the characters involved. We begin to feel empathy for the protagonist, and this makes us care about what happens next.
Optimise Your Heading Tags For Better Ranking opportunities In The Search Results
Headings are one of the most important elements on any webpage. Headings help users understand how the page is structured, so you should use them wisely.
Here are some tips to get started.
1. Use H2, H3, and H4 tags for subheadings.
By including subheadings, you automatically create structure and provide a better user experience. These also provide an opportunity to rank for ‘People Also Asked’ questions (which is discussed further down the page).
2. Make sure your headings are compelling or interesting and unique to the page.
Remember, you’re trying to make your content easy to read. If you have similar headings you might confuse the reader.
3. Include keywords in your headings.
But don’t overdo it. Context is key here. Make sure your headers are relevant for the article and only use keywords that make the header better.
How to maximise ‘People Also Ask’ opportunities
This involves further keyword research. You’re looking for relevant terms (for your niche) that when googled display a box at the top of the rankings often referred to as ‘People Also Asked’ (PAA).
Anytime you find this box, you should be thinking: ‘how do I persuade Google to show my website?’
Now the bad news. You can’t cheat the system. There’s no code you can add to your page that will make your site magically appear in that section.
However, Google will reward your content efforts. Therefore, try to make your content the best there is. Provide structure and answer the questions that people may also ask in your article.
The even better news is that to compete for PAA, you keep following the steps outlined above. So, you must complete your keyword research. You need to understand what the search intent behind those queries is. You need to know your audience!
Then, all you need to do is write a great article. But keep in mind that you must have structured headings and you must include those additional sections targeting the PAA keywords.
If you want to try and game the system, you can also include a table of contents and FAQ schema. While this isn’t strictly necessary, some SEO pundits think it can boost your chances.
Find out how to plan a year’s worth of content and how it fits into content strategy frameworks.
You have to show topical expertise to stand out from the crowd
To become topically authoritative, your website needs to serve your web users, answer all their questions and provide high quality content throughout the entire buying process. You also need to know how to write compelling articles to attract readers.
There are several ways to build topical authority. Here are a few tips to consider:
- Audience research: You can only become an authority by understanding the needs and wants of your target audience.
- Develop a content strategy, create a content plan and then implement it.
- Create great content on your topic. Content should be well written, clear, concise, and engaging. It should answer all the questions of your audience.
- Promote your content on multiple channels and share to social networks. This helps you reach new audiences and gain exposure.
- Offer free resources to your audience. Give away ebooks, whitepapers, guides, cheat sheets, etc.
- Become an expert in your industry. Remember that topical authority isn’t just about writing great content; it’s also about building relationships with other experts in your field. Attend conferences, seminars, workshops, and trade shows. Learn from others and share your knowledge.
- Be transparent about your experience and expertise. People respect those who are willing to share their experiences and opinions.
- Always keep improving. As you publish more and more content, you’ll become more and more authoritative.
These factors combine to prove to search engines that you’re trustworthy and knowledgeable. As long as you continue to produce high-quality content, you’ll eventually gain topical authority.
Technical
Have you completed a SEO audit? This will help identify any issues which may be easy or quick to fix. You’ll also want to consider the performance of your website. You may need to upgrade your web hosting. As well as the on-page SEO tactics mentioned above, consider if your website is easy to navigate.
One of the advantages in trying to achieve topical authority is that you will naturally create keyword clusters. By taking this approach you will also need to cluster your content into themes. All of this has the benefit of forcing you to provide a coherent content architecture.
When you get to a certain volume of content, you will want to link to other pages on your website. By including internal links within your articles, you’re indicating to your readers that there’s additional content that you think is worth their time.
These internal links are strong indicators to crawl bots and provide a better user experience. So it’s worth including them when the context is right.
Related: Discover the SEO strategy for Northern Ireland businesses and how to implement it yourself.
Build Your Brand – become a thought leader
Thought leadership content is defined as any type of content that provides new insight into a specific topic, usually written by experts who are well known in their field. It’s different from traditional marketing content because it focuses on providing unique insights into a given topic rather than selling products or services.
The main goal of this kind of content is to provide value to readers through originality, expertise, and quality.
By publishing thought leadership content, you position yourself as an expert in your field, which helps establish credibility and trustworthiness. This makes people want to learn more about what you do and buy your products or services.
In addition to building your reputation, thought leadership content can also help develop your brand.
Promote your content far and wide
You don’t just want to share your content to get likes on Facebook. You want to share your content to promote your business. You can also use ads to increase your reach and develop brand recognition.
Have you thought about how you might use outreach as a tactic? This is when you submit a guest post on an industry publication or appear on a podcast. All of these activities can have an impact on your SEO. How? By developing your brand you may find that people start searching for your brand name specifically. This can then become an indicator that your brand is associated with the service or products that you provide.
Repackage and repurpose your content for different channels
You can never be stuck for content ideas on social media. This is because you can always repackage or improve your best website articles into posts to share on social media. As you develop your library of content, the opportunities keep on growing.
What is an SEO strategy and why do you need one?
Do you want to get more traffic from search engines?
An SEO strategy can help you improve your website’s ranking in search results. In essence, it is the process you follow in order to maximise the opportunity to gain organic traffic from search engines.
A well-executed SEO strategy can result in increased traffic, leads, and sales for your business. It can also help you build brand awareness and credibility, and establish thought leadership in your industry.
Contact us today to find how we can develop your SEO strategy.
FAQs
What is SEO and why should you invest in it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is an online marketing strategy that involves making sure your website appears higher in search results when someone searches for a particular topic.
The reason why you would want to do this is because more often than not, people type a few words into a search bar and click on the first result that pops up. If your site isn’t listed there, chances are they won’t even bother clicking on your link.
This means that if you want to increase traffic to your site, you need to make sure that your site shows up on page 1 of the search results.
To achieve this, you need to optimise your site.
How much can SEO increase traffic to my website?
No idea. Seriously, there are too many variables to even guess. But, if we know about your business and your niche we can give you a definitive answer.
As a rough guide, if you are an established business with a decent online presence, then SEO itself might not help. However, content marketing almost certainly will. If your site is not getting much traffic and has seen little investment in the last few years, then you absolutely will get an increase in traffic to your site.
What are some useful SEO tips in 2023
- Use keywords in your title tag.
- Make sure you have descriptive titles.
- Write unique meta description tags.
- Include keywords in the URL (URLs should be readable).
- Optimise images.
- Create Unique Content
Can I improve organic traffic to my website within 30 days with SEO?
This is a ‘depends’ answer. If there are a lot of issues with your site, then you can definitely improve your ranking and drive more traffic within 30 days. However, it’s more likely that you won’t see any real benefit for a few months. We’d recommend a consultation session to get an idea of your needs and start preparing a plan of action.
Is it possible to rank for a keyword quickly?
Again, it depends! What is the keyword and how difficult is it to rank for? If you want to reach people fast, then you should employ digital advertising. If you want to build long term stable growth, we can certainly help you achieve that through SEO tactics.
How do you do keyword research?
With a few tools and a lot of time. We’ve written a guide on how you can teach yourself to do keyword research.
