Websites and SEO (search engine optimisation) go hand in hand.
Your design, navigation, coding, and content all combine (or should combine) to deliver a robust SEO strategy that attracts visitors to your website through search marketing.
The problem is if that’s all you’re looking at (i.e. the number of visitors coming to your site) you’re heading for trouble.
Traffic won’t make you rich
It’s great to be able to swank to your mates about how many visitors your website receives.
You can boast about how amazing you are at SEO.
But before you get too big headed, let me ask you this – how many of those visitors turn into paying customers?
After all, that’s the figure that matters.
You could have 10,000 new visitors to your site every day, but if they arrive and then leave immediately, that number is meaningless.
Not only that, but you have a problem.
Why is no one buying?
If your analytics show you’re getting shed loads of visitors, but they’re leaving as soon as they arrive (i.e. you have a humungous bounce rate) there’s something seriously wrong with either your content or SEO strategy (or a combination of both).
Let’s look at your SEO first.
Before launching your website, you did loads of key word research. The problem is, there’s a chance that you have either picked words and phrases that your customers don’t search for. Or, more likely, you’ve gone for a broad term that is being confused with something else.
Let’s say you sell ink cartridges for printers. If you’re targeting words like ‘black ink’ or ‘ink cartridge’ there’s a chance you’re attracting a lot of people who aren’t actually looking for what you sell. That’s why you have to be very focused and precise in the key words that you choose.
The other problem is your content.
If you’ve just written stuff that talks about your company, no one is going to hang around and read it.
It’s essential you focus every word you write on the needs and wants of your customers:
- What problem do they have that you can solve?
- How will your product/service benefit them?
- Have you used language and words they’ll understand and engage with?
Your website is not the place to shout about how great you are; it’s the place where you can reassure your visitors that you have what they’re looking for and will take their pain (i.e. problem) away.
Summary
Traffic is not the number you should be focusing on if you want your website to be a success.
The only thing you should be concerned about is how many of those visitors are converting into paying customers.
It may take a few iterations of your content to get it spot on, but constant small improvements will help you grow your online customers.
Sally Ormond is an international copywriter. Working across all industries, she creates on-brand content for on and offline marketing as well as internal communication