There are several creative ways to increase traffic to your website. Good, interesting content leads to a natural increase in traffic.
Provide Interesting Content to Read
Headlines are the first thing readers see, so it is important to develop good headlines. An effective headline can dramatically increase your views when shared on a social network.
Effective headlines get attention, select an audience, deliver a complete message, and draw the reader into the body of the article. It is a bad idea to use all capital letters, because people tend to skim over rectangular blocks of print, and they will miss the headline completely.
Headlines should not include punctuation marks. Punctuation marks cause readers to stop advancing into the body of the article.
In addition, good headlines are not complicated and are written at a grade 7 reading level. In addition, they avoid puns or wordplay.
Finally, good headlines are written in simple, easy to read fonts. They are precise, and they target a specific audience.
Write Quality Articles
According to the MozCast Feature Graph, 6% of Google search results contain long, comprehensive articles.
The articles that qualify see a significant increase in traffic; there are reports of traffic increasing up to 10% after their inclusion.
Quality articles are ranked better in search results. John Hall, from Influence & Co., says, “Search engines are rewarding people and companies who are getting high-quality, consistent content coming from them.
Things such as author rank are going to have a big effect on organic search results. Put a plan in place to not only create content to publish online, but also to be able to maximize the value of the content so that it is properly distributed across social channels and has a chance to go viral.”
The most effective means of increasing traffic to a website is to offer people something they cannot obtain elsewhere, or at least, not at the level of quality that you are offering it.
Address a specific niche or audience, and become an expert in that field. Create sharable content that can easily be posted on social media sites so your readers can share your content for you.
Vary article length; readers appreciate both long, comprehensive articles, and articles that are short and to-the-point.
Write articles frequently; successful blogs have a steady stream of content. It may be a good idea to outsource article writing.
Score an Author Photo in Google Search Results According to MozCast, if you implement authorship correctly and use the correct photo, you may find yourself in the 20% of all search results that include author photos.
According to Cyrus Shepard, who has tested hundreds of photos, certain attributes of the photo used will increase website traffic: a real face, high contrast colors, and a picture which will appeal to a target audience.
For example, an audience interested in Disneyland will not prefer someone who looks like a financial advisor.
Promote Your Website
Use calls to action and ask readers to get involved in social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
This will make the readers feel like the site owner is interested in them and will keep coming back. Calls to action may include asking readers for comments or to visit the site. Follow other blogs that are related to yours and leave comments.
Interact with these communities, and allow people to find their way to your site. Remember, when you share content on Facebook and Twitter, your network can access this content only when they are looking at Facebook and Twitter.
But when you share content on Google+, they can see this content every time they search Google.
It is a good idea to take advantage of this to expand your Google+ network and share good content regularly and often.
Start a forum and allow your site’s community to start a discussion about your site or anything else. Active forums are a great way to become more visible in searches.
Mitch Gordon, of GO Overseas says “Increasing Google traffic is all about answering questions your community finds important.
You need to become the authority in your niche. Have your community ask you questions, and you’ll be well on your way to providing high-quality, valuable and useful content.
When you provide answers to your community’s questions, Google will rank your site well for many keyword terms you wouldn’t have been able to think of on your own.
You create loyalty in your community and rank well in Google at the same time. That’s a win-win.”
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If you need help creating quality content, check out X27 Marketing.
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