Seeing a vertical spike in web visits is an amazing feeling. Even a gradual incline over a few months is something to get excited about. It’s one of the main metrics clients look for when they look at website performance and naturally we all want to keep out clients happy.
There are a huge number of ways to get more website traffic. Some are better than others, and while there are many ‘wrong’ ways to go about getting traffic, there are equally no definite ‘right’ ways either.
Every website is different and is aimed at different audiences, so while our list of methods will work in general, it’s important to know who you want to attract to your website.
Super important note
Website traffic isn’t everything. As shocking as it may be to hear us say that, there’s no point getting hundreds of thousands of website visits per month if none of those users are converting.
In our opinion, we believe it’s better to have better quality traffic that is relevant and more likely to convert that simply large volumes of web visits.
But enough of our introduction, let’s get to our top 10 ways to get more website visits.
Google Search Console is your friend
If your website isn’t setup with Google Search Console, bookmark this blog, go set it up and then come back. Google Search Console is your troubleshooter for any major problems your website could be facing.
Penalties or performance issues will be highlighted within Google Search Console, and while it may not tell you exactly how to fix these issues, it will at least let you know what those issues are.
But how does this help gain web visits? If you website is experiencing any penalties or any performance issues, this will be massively hurting your rankings.
Lower rankings = less clicks = less overall website visits.
But what sort of issues should you be looking out for? Any penalties need fixing ASAP. These could be to do with anything your website may have done to upset Google in some way such as any Black Hat SEO practices or anything else Google considers a bit dodgy.
It may take time for a website to recover from a penalty, but if you’re inherited a website from a client that has penalties, you want to get these fixed first so these can be getting resolved in the background while you work through everything else.
Other issues could be errors with your sitemap or not even having a sitemap! Problems with your structured data, the list goes on.
Anything that Google doesn’t like it will tell you about in Search Console.
Improve performance
No one likes a slow site, especially Google. Core Web Vitals is a metric that was rolled out in 2021 focused on website performance.
The idea is to ensure websites are not just producing relevant content to search terms, but are also offering a great user experience for when users land on that website, especially users on mobile devices with slow connects.
Overall Google wants to web to be an accessible place for all users and if you’ve ever had a slow 3G connection and tried to navigate a poor website you’ll know exactly what we mean.
There are three Core Web Vitals your website needs to pass:
LCP – Largest Contentful Paint
FID – First Input Delay
CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift
LCP measures how long it takes for the largest element on a page to load. This is usually an image or video, but can sometimes be text. This is really important for users who may otherwise experience a blank screen while the web page is loading.
FID is the delay between when a user visits a web page and when they can interact with the web page. It’s super frustrating for users when they can’t actually interact with a web page because it’s still loading in the background.
CLS is one of the most annoying things users experience. Have you ever visited a web page which keeps moving as it loads? Sometimes this can cause users to click on something by mistake which is super annoying.
Passing Core Web Vitals shows Google that users will have a great experience when they visit your site. In turn, expect to see higher rankings in the search results, ultimately leading to more traffic.
Improve existing pages
Before you go chasing keywords and start building new pages, it’s time to take a look at how the pages you already have are performing.
New content can be great fund to create, but fixing underperforming pages can be just as satisfying.
An easy first fix is the layout of the content. Is it easy to read? Is it broken up with headings? Are paragraphs not too large and off-putting?
Even if your content is thousands of words long, users will still stick around if the layout and readability are good.
Next, check out your imagery. Are the file sizes ok or are your images megabytes in site? Is the imagery stimulating? Do you even have imagery?
Be sure not to get carried away, but pages without images can look intimidating and hard to read. Remember – People ‘read’ images before they read text.
Be sure to check in on Google Analytics; take a look at all of your individual pages and see what the bounce rate is like and time on page.
If your time on page is low, it could mean users aren’t interacting with your content and are moving on quickly. It could also mean that you page doesn’t have enough content or perhaps it’s purpose is to simply direct users elsewhere.
If your bounce rate is high, this could be showing that users are landing and leaving straight away because they haven’t found what they are looking for.
It’s important to note bounce rate could also mean that users loved your content but simply didn’t click anything else.
If you’re positive the content is practically perfect, then try adding in more internal links or buttons and enticing users to click. That way, the bounce rate will reduce and you’re keeping users on your site rather than clicking the back button.
Content marketing
What is content marketing? The most common form is blogging. It’s simply about creating content that your audience will find useful or entertaining.
Content can take many different forms and it’s important to consider which will resonate best with your audience. Free guides, infographics, top 10s (like this one) are all useful ways of giving free information.
And that’s what content marketing is really all about – Answering questions and giving free information.
We’re not saying to give your services away for free, but if users can see you are knowledgeable in what you are saying, they are more likely to trust you and see you as an authoritative figure in your industry for demonstrating your knowledge.
A blog is a great way to start by answering common questions your audience may have. Or creating guides like this one.
We’re not going to pretend content marketing isn’t a lot of work (because it really is!) and the reward may take many months or even years, but the great thing about creating content that is evergreen is that it never goes out of date.
What is evergreen content? It’s content that stays relevant for a long time. Unlike news articles that see a short term spike of traffic, evergreen content should see consistent, if not increasing levels of traffic.
Evergreen can be seasonal, too. The idea is to create content you don’t have to update, rewrite or necessarily touch too often to keep relevant.
New content based on search terms
Now we’re getting tactical in terms of Search Engine Optimisation. A lot of folks create content based on ideas they have or what their client may want. But this isn’t always the best way.
We see it often – A business will get excited about creating content. They’ll create five or six great blogs, but they’ll see no reward from them at all. No real increase in website visits, nothing. They think it didn’t work and so give up.
The reason this doesn’t work is because you’re working backwards. Instead of creating content you think your users will like, you need to find out what they are actually searching for and create content for that.
Once you know what a user is looking for, you simply have to provide an answer. No more guessing what the user might like or might be searching for, you know for sure exactly what search terms they are using.
And how exactly do you find these search terms? The best tools out there are Ahrefs and SEM Rush. Both offer free trials, and while we totally get they are expensive, they can be incredibly valuable for anyone creating content in order to increase website visits.
You can get hints from Google Trends and even places like Answer The Public, but to see search volumes and keywords for the same topic, nothing beats a good SEO tool.
Skyscrape competitor’s content
Sounds dodgy, but it’s not. The ‘sky-scraping’ method is where you find some content from a competitor that’s ranking above you or doing well in general and create your own version which is much better.
For example, say both you and your competitor have a blog about cat toys. No matter what you do, their blog is always ranking above yours, sometimes quite a lot higher up than yours.
What you do is analyse what makes their blog so good and make your blog even better.
This can be things like word count, internal links, readability, page performance, absolutely anything that makes their blog better than yours, you in turn need to make yours better than theirs.
Do not copy and paste anything, that’s just asking for trouble. What we’re saying is their content sets the benchmark for what Google is looking for (which is why they’re outranking you in the first place) and so for you to rank ahead of them, your content must be even better.
You can find competitor’s content simply by Googling search terms you’re also targeting, but Ahrefs and SEM Rush also let you analyse a competitor’s website to see which of their pages is ranking above yours.
Digital PR
Digital PR is all about getting featured on high-traffic websites such as news sites and getting a mention or a link.
This is pretty tricky to do since news sites are bombarded with marketers trying to get their on these news websites, but when it works you can expect incredible results.
Digital PR usually works best when you are targeting a niche audience and a niche news website. Say you run a plumbing website and want to get featured on Plumbers Online, you need to give them something that makes them want to mention you on their site and point their audience your way.
Ideas include an imaginative campaign or even a case study with some interesting results. Anything that audience in the niche you are working in could find useful or entertaining.
The news site then may run a story about your findings or feature your campaign and ideally give your brand a mention along with a link.
That link is not only gold as a backlink, but will also point users your way.
In short, to get more website visits, get featured on a website that already has a lot of website visits.
Email marketing
Straying away from your typical website-based methods we now go to one of our favourite types of marketing.
Email marketing may feel very early 2000s, but it is a method that we and our clients still find produced incredible results.
With a database of subscribers, you can send relevant emails containing links to your website that your audience may find useful.
Rather than users searching for you, you are going to them with a list of links to your website. Clicks from your email = visits to your website.
Be sure to email your audience often, but not too often. At least one email a month is great as this keeps your business in their minds should they need you.
Breaking your audience into relevant groups is even better as you can then send emails that are more relevant to these people instead of blanketing everyone.
Email subject lines should be short and catchy. The emails should be easy to read and shouldn’t have too much text. And be sure to include links to your website, either in the form of internal text links or listing boxes. No more than three or four mind.
We shouldn’t need to say this, but never ever buy email data and always make sure you are following the laws of your country when dealing with people’s data.
Google ads
Not necessarily the best way to get more website visits, but definitely one that works.
Ideally you shouldn’t rely on ads of any form. The reason being is that you’re literally paying for every single click. Another being that if anything were to change in terms of the rules or how online ads work, then you could end up losing your main traffic source.
That said, if you needed traffic quickly, you could create as many ads for as many different search terms (that are relevant to your website and your content) as you need and gain web visits from these.
There is a science to Google Ads and it can be very easy to spend a lot of money quickly without seeing much return, so always be cautious before you start creating ads and bidding on keywords.
We recommend ads supplement the rest of your marketing and are used strategically. The best cases are to help spread the word quickly while you wait for content to rank organically and to protect your own brand search terms.
What do we mean by this? Well by creating ads using your own branded keywords stops (or at least makes it harder) for your competitors to target your branded keywords.
Imaging searching for your brand but a competitor’s ad shows up before your own number one organic search result!
It may sound silly to bid on your own branded keywords when you should be ranking organically for these terms anyway, but it just protects your brand from any sneaky tactics from a competitor.
Be consistent
The single most important method to gain web traffic is to be consistent.
Keep on top of your analytics, check in with Google Search Console regularly, analyse and improve existing content and keep creating new content.
The thing with websites is they are never truly done. You can never really ‘finish’ a website as the web is always evolving and your competitors are always moving.
To keep those website visits coming in, you have to be on top of everything. Even if it’s just little bits here and there, it’s better than doing nothing to your website for months.
Advice can vary between each and every website, but we recommend popping into Google Analytics daily, creating content weekly and checking in with Google Search Console at least monthly.
But remember, as well as being consistent, it really is about quality over quantity. 10 well written, long form blogs will always win against 100 really short, scrappy ones.
Conclusion
How do you get more web visits? As you can see there are many different ways and no one method on its own will necessarily be the best method for you.
Instead try a bit of everything. Create new content, improve existing content, ensure your website performance is up to scratch, create an ad or two and keep your email subscribers up to date.
But the most important thing of all is to keep going. Websites are very difficult to build and keep running, but that’s all part of the fun! Keep making little wins and those website visits will soon start to steadily rise.
