How do I get more traffic to my website? SEO Demystified

Here at Spire, we never tire of hearing the question, “How do I get more traffic to my website?” It’s one of the four important success factors to focus on. You could even call us traffic evangelists, as we’ve helped countless small businesses, non-profits, and others get to the top of their industry with the right marketing recipe.

This blog post kicks off a special five-part series to answer the seemingly elusive question: How do I get more traffic to my website? The answer is actually a simple recipe that we’ve found works for small businesses dependent on local search, churches and other non-profits,  as well as internet-based businesses.

Website traffic

To get ahead in today’s economy and technology era, businesses need a website. But not just any website. It must be a search engine optimized (SEO) website.

SEO is just a fancy term website and marketing experts use to cover the basic factors that will help your website “rank” high. You see, when a person types in a search term on Google, there’s a rhyme and reason behind what shows up on that page, and it’s all based on SEO.

Google’s “bots” are continually searching through thousands upon thousands of web pages, trying to decipher which pages offer users the most relevant information. So, in essence, your website pages must “speak” to users and search engine bots simultaneously.

To address users, you’ll just need to write informative, insightful content that addresses their key questions about how your services or products solves their most-pressing problem. To address search engines, you need to use SEO.

SEO

Businesses can boost SEO in multiple ways, such as through blogging, conducting a paid search campaign and using social media. But there are specific components on each website page speak the language of SEO. Here are just a few:

1. Page title. Usually in large font, the title of the page should accurately describe the main idea of the content that follows on the page.
2. Title tag. This is the line that appears above the web search box, and to further enhance SEO, it should include your business’ name, relevant keywords and your location.
3. Body Text. Don’t forget to use the keywords you are targeting in the body text on the page. Sounds simple, but it’s very important.
4. URL. The web address that shows up in the search box at the top of the page, where users will type a web address, should contain as many keywords as possible that describe your business name or service/products. For example, if your business is a hair salon, the domain name should ideally include those words and the region you serve (www.hairsaloncleveland.com), or your exact business name (nextstephairsalon.com).
5. Images. The images on your pages will not only speak to users, but they also offer a chance to improve SEO by using “alt tags” that describe the content. Search engines will then “read” these tags, giving your website a few extra points for using relevant keywords.
6. Inbound links. Attractive content and a strong brand leads to other credible sites “linking” to your website. Search engines give this kind of strategy a high ranking, and it’s worth investing in developing relationships with and producing content for online publishers and submitting press releases.
7. Subheads. A great way to guide readers through the page and its content, subheads make the material reader friendly, and search engines will scan for this content too, as it shows that your page is presented in a useful way.

Other methods of optimizing web pages including offering contact information, hyperlinking to relevant content within your site, using keywords and tags, creating a sitemap, and more. SEO strategies are so important to success that businesses should consider devoting resources to the effort, or outsourcing the service so that Google and other search engines will see as quality content. The result is of great value: You’ll get more traffic to your website.

To learn more about effective SEO, click below to download our popular “SEO Cheat Sheet“!