Imagine for a moment that you have planned the perfect party. You’ve bought the decorations, food, drink and a new outfit for the evening. You’ve spent so long planning this party, the room looks brilliant and you’re really looking forward to the night ahead but wait… where are the guests? If people don’t know about the party, they’re not going to turn up. The same is true for your business website.
Low website traffic is a big problem for businesses - after all, more traffic often leads to more conversions or sales. Here’s what you can do to improve the situation.
Are you using the right data?
It might seem painfully obvious but, the first thing to check is whether or not you’re looking at the right data. If you use Google Analytics, ensure that the tracking code and source code on your website match - if they don’t it could be that Google Analytics has not been properly installed meaning that the data you’re viewing and fretting over is incorrect. Equally, you can use this data to understand more about where users may or may not be coming from to help you better appreciate where your efforts will be best placed to increase web traffic in the future.
Outdated information
When was the last time you updated the information on your website? If you can’t remember, it’s probably time for a website refresh. Users and search engines like new information so take the time to check through your website - do you have the right contact details? Are your team pages up to date? When was the last time that you updated your blog? Do you even have a blog? All of these elements can go a long way when it comes to boosting low web traffic.
Bad user experience
There’s nothing worse than visiting a website that doesn’t work or is difficult to navigate. Successful websites are based on the needs of the users, so put yourself in the position of your buyers and take a look at your website. Would you buy from your website if you were a consumer?
If the answer is no, you need to concentrate on improving the user experience and ensure that your website follows best practices to make your website more appealing to potential customers.
Unresponsive designs
80% of internet users own a smartphone so it is essential that your company website is optimised for smartphones, tablets and other gadgets as a growing number of people are using these devices to access the internet. Just because your website looks great on a desktop computer doesn’t mean that it will work on a smaller screen. The last thing your users want to do is scroll across pages to find the information that they’re looking for. If your website is unresponsive, chances are users will take a quick look at your site before going to look elsewhere - ultimately, you’re sending users to your competitors! Search engines will soon learn that your website is unresponsive and unsuitable for mobile which could really limit the amount of traffic your website receives.
Poor Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
If you want to make sure that people are going to find your website, you’re going to need SEO. There are a staggering 6,586,013,574 worldwide searches a day (mostly on Google) so making sure that your search engine optimisation works effectively is essential. You may have low traffic if you’re disregarding SEO - if search engines can’t find or understand your website and its content you can guarantee it won’t be directing users to your site.
You can improve your SEO by:
- Writing good quality content
- Speak your users language
- Focus on keywords
- Optimise your titles
- Don’t neglect descriptions and metadata
Fix broken links
There’s nothing worse than finding a link to the information you’ve been searching for only to be greeted with “Error 404: Page Not Found”. If a link on your website isn’t taking your visitors to where they want to be, chances are they’ll go to find the information somewhere else and won’t return.
Get noticed
Think about increasing the number of links from social media and other websites to your site. This will help by providing your potential customers more chances to discover your brand and its website when browsing online - think about guest blogging or seeding content through your social channels to provide you opportunities to include links to your website - this helps with SEO too.
If your website isn’t getting the traffic you want or need to grow your business, we can help. Our online experts can take a look at your data and highlight any areas of concern and recommend solutions to your problems.
