How To Increase Traffic To Your Website
There are several ways to increase traffic to your website. The first step is to optimize your website internally. There are several ways to optimize your website, but the main indicators are site speed, keyword volume and website authority.
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Optimized Page Titles
It’s important to optimize your page titles for many reasons, including readability, scannability, and SEO. The page title is the first thing your visitors will read when they land on the page, so you want a title that is relevant to the content on your site to ensure readers will stay on your page, but the title should also include search keywords to support SEO. Page titles are also referred to as H1s and they are the most scannable piece of your pages so it’s imperative that you choose titles that are aligned with searchable terms.
How to Create High Ranking Page Titles
- Each page should only have one H1(page title). If your website is set up in WordPress, then it is set up so that this is the case.
- H1s should be between 20-70 characters
- Use the H1 to describe the topic of the page. If the visitor is surprised by what the content of the page was after viewing it, the page title likely wasn’t well considered.
- If you can, integrate keywords into the page title. Search engines will use these to understand what the page is about and serve it up to more relevant search query results. This will usually require some keyword research to make sure you understand the keyword opportunities to better target your primary audiences. I recommend using Google Keyword Planner for this step – especially if you’re on a budget.
Managing Page Titles within WordPress
1. After logging in to WordPress, select the page you would like to update on the ‘Pages’ section on the left of the dashboard.
2. In the options underneath, click ‘Edit’ – you’ll be put into the back end page editing interface.
3. At the top of the screen, you’ll see the current page title in big black letters. Click here and update to your structured title.
4. If you’re updating a live page, make sure to update the page slug as well. Should you update the slug for the page, you must also make updates anywhere the link is live or create a 301 redirect strategy to avoid any broken links which will only hurt your rankings later on.
5. Hit save!
Utilize Meta Descriptions
The meta description of the page is what shows up as the snippet of text with the page title on search engine results pages(SERPs). A good meta description should provide a brief, enticing summary of the page. These do not have any effect on your search rankings, so you’re only trying to create appealing content for the users. Pages with weaker or no meta descriptions are proven to be less effective in getting organic traffic to visit the page.
What Information Should I Add in Page Meta Descriptions
- Description lengths should be 50-160 characters long. If using Yoast (instructions below), the colored below will instruct you on achieving the desired length.
- Only use alphanumeric characters – avoid symbols and emojis to ensure consistency.
- Create custom descriptions for each page. If you don’t create custom meta descriptions, search engines will pull content they think is relevant. Although this isn’t the end of the world, it can come off as unprofessional.
- Avoid re-using the same description for each page.
Adding Meta Descriptions in WordPress
1. Ensure you have the Yoast SEO plugin added to your website.
2. Find the page you would like to update via the ‘Pages’ option on the left of the dashboard.
3. In the ‘All pages’ listing, find the page you would like to update.
4. In the options underneath, click ‘Edit’ – you’ll be put into the back end page editing interface.
5.Scroll down to the area titled, Yoast SEO and click the ‘Edit Snippet’ button.
6.This will expose the ‘MetaDescription’ field. Write your meta description into the box. Notice that as your type, a colored bar will appear below the box. When you reach the optimal length, this bar will appear as green. Too short or too long will appear as red or orange.
7.Remember to save/publish your changes when your done.
Condense Your Image Files
Most website owners don’t know that large file images slow down your site and lower your search rankings. Use programs like ImageOptim to condense and optimize image files. Smaller file sizes take less time to load and ensure users have a greater experience. Be sure to add alt text to all images to ensure there will be a text placeholder as larger files load onto your website.
Add Image Alt Text
The main purpose of alt text is to make content accessible to users with visual impairments. It will also be displayed in the event that the image cannot be loaded. However, bots scan alt images to learn the content of your website, making this is a great resource to adding keywords throughout various pages. Also note that if you don’t have any images, you can also look into adding subtitles, or captioning, to any videography your site may contain.
Things to Note Adding Alt Text
- Be descriptive of what’s in the image. For example, ‘student influencer at Starbucks event’ vs ‘girl with cup in hand’
- Although it should be as descriptive as possible, try to limit to 125 characters
- If it makes sense to do so, you can use your keywords in the alt text. But don’t do it for the sake of it. This would be ‘keyword stuffing’.
- You don’t need to include “image of” or “picture of” in the alt text. This is already assumed.
Adding Alt Text in WordPress
1.Go to the ‘Media’ option on the left of the dashboard.
2.In the media library, find the image you want to update and click on it.
3.The image will open in a pop up window with metadata attributes on the right of the screen.
4.There is a field labeled ‘Alternative text’. Type the alt text into this field – you don’t need to save when you’re done.
Backlinks
Another way your website is found is through backlinks. Backlinks are any link that can be found on any other platform that link back to your website. Think social media shares or blogs that call out other website’s content. The way this works is that bots scan the text that your URL is linked to, and that builds authority for your website on that content. It’s important to be mindful about who is linking to your page and what language they’re using.
Internal Linking
The best part about backlinks, however, is that you also have the power to manipulate the bots within your site. This is to ensure your users have a guide through all relevant content while visiting your site in hopes that it will eventually become a conversion
How to Optimize Your In-Text Keywords
- Avoid saying things like click here. Instead, use language that describes the page. For example, are you curious what Google knows about you?
- Try to include them on each page, and link to keywords when it makes sense.
- Try to link to pages that have some sort of CTA.
Questions?
If you have any questions on implementing SEO tactics into your website, feel free to contact me.
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