We are performing more tasks than ever before online. Shopping is done online, reading reviews before making crucial purchases is done online, talking to friends and making new ones is also done on the web.

Let’s not forget; finding new products or services that can improve lives, is also done from the comfort of ones home while browsing the internet.

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What this means is for any business to stay competitive also needs to establish themselves on the internet. A well designed and maintained website can create that valuable exposure a business needs to help propel them forward.

You may be considering creating a website of your own. Perhaps you already have one but it hasn’t been performing as well as you had hopped. There are a variety of faux pas that people make when creating a website that can hamper their effectiveness.

There are a few things you can do to help direct online traffic to your web page. That’s what we’re here to talk about. Let’s dive right in.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines are some of the most essential online traffic driving tools at your disposal. Optimizing your own web page for search engines is crucial if you want to attract valuable attention from internet users.

If you already have a website, I highly suggest analyzing your current SEO performance with a tool such as Website Grader. It will tell you all the vital information regarding your current website’s SEO performance.

Before making any changes in regards to SEO you need to check and see what needs to be adjusted – if anything at all. So once you go through your SEO performance test, you will be able to see what you did right, and what aspects of your page could use some help.

When your have optimized your website for search engines, seeing positive changes may take some time. You will not be rewarded instantly for your efforts.

Building up solid search ranking takes a bit of time – in some cases a few months to see results. Don’t be discouraged. Stay committed to your SEO efforts, and continue monitoring your web page performance.

Check out some other SEO tools to help stay on the right track.

Mobile Friendly Website

More users everyday access and browse internet on their mobile devices. In fact, more people use their mobile phone or tablet to surf the web than their desktop computers.

For the sake of your website traffic, you need to be sure your web page is a mobile friendly one. Seeing how most internet traffic derives from a mobile device, it would be foolish to not cater to those users.

I spoke about SEO before. When it comes to SEO, sites that are mobile friendly tend to rank higher in search engines than the ones that are not. Google recently changed their search algorithm that gives ranking priority to mobile friendly web pages.

Having a website that’s mobile friendly typically isn’t a problem for most companies. Usually the website creating platforms that we have available do this automatically. Although do check and see if yours is optimized the way it should be.

Create and Manage a Blog

Along with your website, you should consider creating a blog – if you haven’t already done so. This gives you another platform to post relevant content, and help guide your consumer through the buyers journey. Not to mention an extra platform to help direct them to your main website too.

Present your audience with great content that they will find useful on your blog. Blogging helps you persuade the reader that you are a trustworthy individual with valid information that can also relate back to your business operations.

Assert your knowledge through solid blog content. You can post any type of content here – videos, infographics, interviews, guides.

Just make sure that the blog is relevant to you and your business operations. If your blog contains information about gardening, but you’re a dentist, you may lose credibility and your audience won’t be very enticed to visit your dentistry site.

Blog SEO

Your blog can also benefit from SEO efforts. Instead of having only your website gathering search engine traffic, your blog can too. This way you expand your online presence through multiple channels.

There is a saying – “all roads lead to Rome.” Well online, all the digital content you create, will lead to your main website, generating valuable traffic.

Publishing Guest Posts

Guest posting is a great way to build valuable connections with companies and influential individuals in similar industries. You can share valuable insights with others and post your knowledge on sites that may have more traction than you.

Reach out to relevant blog pages and other media outlets that publish topics that relate to your business. See if they will allow you to be the guest star that publishes great content on their pages.

This can help get your name out there and promote your business website. Include links within the posts that can guide the audience to your page.

Promote On Social Media

Social media is a great tool that can be used for communication with your audience and promoting your company. Digital marketers have been using social media for marketing purposes for almost as long as social media has existed on the internet.

Of course you can utilize social media to create exposure for your web page. No matter if you have an e-commerce site or just a normal page that introduced the consumer with your product, social media can direct traffic your way.

Now depending on what social media platforms you choose, your promotion style may differ. When filling out your social media profile, almost all platforms allow you to include your website in the profile. Don’t skip this simple step.

If you upload images on social media, include a watermark with your company’s name and website. When publishing text-heavy posts, include a link within. Your links can lead to your web page that contains more extensive information or just drop a plain link at the end of your post.

You shouldn’t forget to cross-promote your social media across your blogs, email, and your website. Your business web presence should be intertwined and constantly promoting whatever platforms you choose to utilize.

Relevant Website Name

A proper business name can say a lot about the company. It’s one aspect that brands are built upon, and the name should also carry over to your website. There should be no confusion between the name of your business and the website URL or the main header of your landing pages.

It can be hard to get the right URL that aligns with the name of your company, but you need to try your best to make it work.

Website Functionality

How does the website itself operate? Is it user-friendly? Look at your page from a new customers point-of-view. Would they be happy with the layout and would they be able to find what they’re looking for?

You need to take a hard look at how your layout looks and if it’s intuitive to use for newcomers. Avoid creating lengthy drop-down menus and links that lead to a never ending link black hole. What I mean by that is pressing on a button on the menu which sends me to more menus which then lead me to more selections.

Most valuable information needs to be available with as few clicks as possible. Think about what the most important information is and how to make it easily accessible.

Content Placement

Developing a solid understanding of your content placement may take some time. You may try a few methods to distribute and to display the essentials for your audience, and you will need to monitor your websites performance to see how people respond.

One great way to understand the browsing habits of your demographic is to implement a heat map on your website. Having it will show you where the user is clicking, how far they’re scrolling down, or how much time they spend on a certain page.

With this information you can tailor your pages and your content in a way that it’s placed in the most optimal location within easy reach.

Most valuable content will get the attention of your audience – captivate them. You then are able to add more content that may take a fee additional clicks to reach, but at that point you made your audience crave for more. They will gladly dwell deeper into your site.

Think of this from your own perspective. If you go to a new website, and the first few clicks don’t invoke a sense of curiosity, you may not even spend 30 seconds on the site and move on.

Color Choices

Colors have magical abilities – they can influence behavior and invoke certain emotions. When deciding on the color scheme for your web page, you need to really consider what type of atmosphere you’re trying to create and the demographic you want to cater to.

Website Content

Many websites rely on variety of content to present their information with. There is usually a healthy balance between images, videos, and text. You may want to adapt multiple types of mediums for your content as well, but that will depend on your target audience.

Things like guides can be introduced in a video format or a text based walk-through with images. You will need to see what type of content performs best and where it all should be located within the website.

The quality of your content is what will intrigue your audience and will make them stay and dwell deeper. Quality content will help guide your potential consumer through buyer’s journey. If there is any discrepancies within the journey, you may lose credibility and trust with your audience.

Analyze Performance

The benefit of having an online presence, no matter what it is – social media page, blog, or a website – you can monitor your performance with tools. Analytic tools are available for you to use and gather data to see how users are behaving on your pages.

All your social media platforms have analytics tools which will evaluate all your posts and content. Google offers it’s own analytic tool for you to use on your website that will show you all the information pertaining to user interaction on your page.

This data is incredibly vital especially when making any changes. With analytics, you can do A/B testing to compare different website templates, color choices, content location, etc and see what performs best.

Any Changes you make to you web page, will have user data verifying just how useful the change my be. Perhaps the changes you make are counterproductive, and the data confirms the fact that you should revert back.

Calculate, measure and assess your actions online and see what benefit it brings to your website.

Always incorporate analytics.

Wrapping It Up

Creating a website isn’t so hard. Creating an effective website that engages users, educates them and creates customers…well that’s a whole different story.

A web page is just another tool that will lead your business to success. It’s there to do the talking for you without you ever facing the client and the website can do this anywhere on the globe. Now you see why it’s important to create a strong web presence that bolsters your web site and along with it your company as a whole.

This tips are even more detrimental to incorporate if your business is based completely online. Your website is the store front and you need to direct the right traffic through those digital doors.

Implement these steps, and watch your web traffic grow. All this newly acquired attention will surely lead to great business opportunities and influx of paying customers.