As the joke goes, “Where is the best place to hide a dead body” the ‘punch line being “The second page on Google”. It is an old (and tired) joke, but it does make the point. When, was the last time you scrolled past the first page of any search results? If you can recall, I will bet that it is not a common occurrence for you.

But without Traffic, Conversions won’t happen. So, in this blog, we will look at how you can generate traffic for your website.

Firstly, you can pay a Search Engine Optimisation consultant or company to optimise your website and boost it up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Due to the expertise involved and the laborious nature of the process, there will be a significant cost involved, especially for a small business. It is also not a quick process, it takes time and you should not expect to see the fruits of this investment for around 6 months.

However, there are some actions you can take, at no or minimal cost, to improve your ranking on Google and we will look at some of those in this Blog:

1. Make sure you have the correct keywords on your website. Keywords are words or phrases that your potential customers will type into Google to find services like yours. Click here to learn more about keywords.

2. Registering your business on Google My Business (GMB) - this should take you 20-30 minutes and is a quick win.  You can read my latest blog to learn more about Google My Business.

3. Ask for reviews on Google, Social Media, and any other review sites you may belong to.

4. Getting citations for your website by registering with the free online business directories (yell.com, text, scooploop, etc). If you Google free UK business directories you will find lots of them and it’s a case of adding your business details, name, address, phone number, and crucially, your website on each directory. This is quite labour intensive and repetitive, also certain sites will require you to speak to someone or respond to an email to verify your details. 

5. Update the content on your website regularly, Search engines reward you for new (relevant) content.

6. Update your page descriptions, images, and headings all have the most appropriate keywords in them.

7. Ensure you promote your website on your Social Media channels, you can publish your website on FB, IG, and LI business pages. Join the Community / special interest groups and share your posts to these.  For more information on Social Media, click here 

8. Utilise email marketing. Email marketing is still an effective way of communicating with your audience. Ensure it has compelling calls to action linking back to your website 

9. Make your website easy to find, have it in your email signature, on your quotes, invoices, business cards, etc (basically any communication or collateral you have should have your website address on it).

10. Write a Blog. Your website has a blog function included. Writing a blog will allow you to enter a lot more content with keywords for your website which will improve your rankings.  Find out more about blogging here

Traffic is the lifeblood of your website, without it, you cannot convert visitors into customers and you will certainly not see the return on your investment that you could.  

This list is, by no means, exhaustive and there are plenty of ways you can encourage visitors to your website. There are also many technical aspects to SEO that will also increase traffic to your website. However, they are outside of the scope of this Blog.

All of the above actions are easy and free. Some of them are quick wins but others can be very time-consuming, such as researching keywords and registering for citations. None require any technical expertise so can be done by yourself.  

Carrying our the above will yield results but it is worth considering hiring a professional as this will not only save you time but will also have significantly better results.

For more ways to promote your business not complete our free MARKETING AUDIT