Business Now Online Yet no Traffic nor Sales, This is what You Lack
Search Engine Optimization, yes, that’s exactly what you lack.
Are you one of the business owners that felt all you need to explode your business is to have your business online?
Did you attend a business forum and the speaker repeatedly mention the importance of creating a website for your business so as to reach more clients and make more sales?
Now that you’ve created a website for your company, did you notice any positive change in revenue?
If your answer is No, that’s because you’re missing something.
Read on while I explain…
You see, it’s one thing to have your business online but it’s another thing to have people actually see it.
So why then are you online yet hidden? Lack of proper SEO.
You shouldn’t take the pains (time and resources) of setting up a website/blog and still be lost in the www space.
Now don’t get me wrong when I say you’re online yet hidden.
This is what I mean;
A research conducted by Chitika, an online ad company, found that the results on the first page of Google Search Engine Return Page (SERP) enjoy around 92% of the total traffic of search queries.
Furthermore, the study put the traffic of visitors that end their search query in the first page of Google results at 33%. While the second and third pages gets 18% and 11% respectively.
Now if you have your business online but it does not appear on Google’s first, second or third page, then it’s as good as offline.
This could be the origin of the funny meme that states “The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google Search Results“.
You know what this translates to, if you’re down on the fourth, fifth etc page of search engines pages your online presence is of no worth if your business depends on search query alone to get noticed
How then can you be noticed online?
This is a very important question and that is where SEO comes in.
Like I stated earlier, SEO simply means Search Engine Optimization.
In my earlier article on what SEO is, I defined Search Engine Optimization as different methods or techniques, web masters can use to improve their site’s ranking in search engines so that they represent closest matches and most reliable resource for users search query.
This been said, I want you to note that 93% of online experience starts with a search engine, be it Google, Yahoo or Bing etc.
So anyone that advised you to have your business online is not trying to deceive you but offer a solid help.
But to go further with that help, I will teach you how to make your business become more visible online.
How to be Visible Online and get Search Engine Traffic that will Convert to Sales
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Choose a KEYWORD
The first step to getting noticed on search engines is having keyword(s) notable for your website. That is the major thing search engines like Google look out for when ranking a site/page.
Keyword is a word that describes the content of your page or post. They are words keyed on the query section of a search engine by online users. For example, if a user in New Haven, Enugu is looking for the nearest artist or bakery, all the user need do is type artists in New Haven Enugu and the search engine returns results similar to their query.
There are three main types of Keywords;
- Short-tail keyword: This can be one or two words, mostly very broad and competitive with high search volume. Example, entrepreneur, business failure
- Medium-tail keyword: This can be two to three words, new toast for online users with increasing search volume. Example, Who is an entrepreneur?, Causes of business failure.
- Long-tail keyword: This can be long search queries requesting more definite answers like, who are the first entrepreneurs that ever existed? They have low search volume, less competition (mostly)
Below are screenshots of the three keyword examples mentioned above and their search volume.
- Entrepreneur (Short-tail) – 700,000,000 results
- Who is an entrepreneur (Medium-tail) – 682,000,000 results
- Who are the first entrepreneurs that ever existed? (Long-tail) – 15,300,000
Now you see the number or websites/blogs gunning for those keyword(s)
Having explained this, now let me show you how you can rank your business website/blog.
Let’s say you are a Lagos based artist specialized in pencil drawing, I will not advice you to choose the keyword “Pencil drawing” as this is a very competitive keyword with a search volume of 464,000,000 results. I will rather you are more specific and direct. I am not an artist to choose more related words together but choosing “affordable pencil drawing artist in Lagos”. That long-tail keyword is less competitive but more direct and easier to rank for. The search volume is 721,000 results.
Once you’ve chosen a keyword, the next step is to place the keyword(s) in the right places. This can be done by making sure all your posts/products target that keyword(s). If possible, use the keyword in your timeline below your site name. Also make sure all your uploaded artworks have the keyword tag on them.
I bet you, within the shortest period, you’ll start getting search engine traffic and if your work is good and visitors engage with your site, Google will place it right where it belong, first page.
You should use Keyword Analysis Tool to easily identify keywords to rank for.
SEMScoop Keyword Difficulty Tool is a smart out of the box keyword research and SERP analysis tool for digital marketers, bloggers, and small businesses who are interested in improving their site’s overall ranking.
I use the premium SEMScoop (Business plan) for keyword analysis. See image below
It can help you find true ranking opportunities & low SEO difficulty terms to create smart and competitive content.
It also helps you;
- Find hundreds of long-tail keywords that are able to generate more traffic to your site
- Search and rank long-tail keywords
- Find keyword authority metrics, ranking factors
- Get instant keyword accurate data and difficulty
- Generate keyword ideas
- Research keyword by country
You can use SEMScoop for free but you are limited to the result you get. I’ll suggest an upgraded account if you really want to rank that your business.
You can get 20% off for life using this code SAVE20LT
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Make Your Site Mobile Friendly
Statistics shows that mobile phone traffic accounts for 52.2% of website traffic worldwide. This is up from 50.3% the previous year. This stat will keep growing and Google already aware of the change in website traffic source changed to Mobile-first Indexing.
“Mobile-first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, to better help our (primarily mobile) users find what they’re looking for.” – Google
What this translates to; Google will favour sites that are mobile-friendly.
Google is looking to provide the best online user experience for her search visitors and considering the fact that most users are now visiting from the mobile platform, Google changed her search bots to favour sites that are mobile-friendly more.
Below is the percentage traffic source to this blog (The Total Entrepreneurs) by device from January 1st, 2019 to March 10th, 2019
Mobile: 84.4%
Desktop: 13.1%
Tablet: 2.6%
The statistics shows that a whooping 84.4% of visitors to TheTotalEntrepreneurs.com came from mobile.
So if your business site is not mobile friendly, there is a probability it may not outrank similar websites that are mobile friendly.
To learn how to make your site mobile friendly, visit Google’s guide to mobile-friendly site.
If your platform is running on WordPress, you should use the MyThemeShop WordPress Theme. They are mobile-friendly and with inbuilt SEO tools.
You should also consider using a good host company for maximum uptime.
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Site speed
Another secret to a higher search engine ranking is site speed.
Site speed is a measurement of how fast the content on your site loads.
According to Google Authors, Zhiheng Wang and Doantam Phan, “People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible.”
This study shows that people really care about the speed of a page.
The authors from Google noted that though speed has been used in ranking for some time, Google focused on desktop searches but starting from July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches.
Google may penalize your site if the pages are extremely slow.
You can use this Google tool – TestMySite to check how long your site loads and to identify areas where you can improve your mobile page load times specifically.
You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insight to analyzes the content of your web page, then generates suggestions to make the page load faster.
Some of the factors that can slow your wordpress site down is the theme and webhost. If you’re using a badly coded theme, your site will definitely be lagging. You should consider using theme from MyThemeShop. These themes are fast, responsive and built for SEO. As for WebHost, you may choose from any of these industry leaders with affordable plans; Bluehost or Fastcomet.
Note: You can also check if your site has been penalized by Google on ismywebsitepenalized.com.
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Quality Content/Product/Service
Finally, you can have a great site that is mobile friendly and fast but if it does not add value or offer great service/product, it will go down the ranks as fast as it went up.
Content is still king.
The higher value you create on your site, the higher your visitors will share the content on their social media account which in turn gives your domain some sort of authority and audacity online.
When people share your site’s content/product, they’re indirectly recommending what you’re offering. This help your site’s reputation and Google takes note of this.
Backlinks
Quality content also attracts backlinks and the higher the number of external links pointing to your site, the higher the chance that it will be ranked high on search engine return pages. The best white hat strategy for building quality backlinks is through creating great content.
Conclusion
If you judiciously follow the above rules, you will start seeing significant traffic from search engines. And it is of note that traffic from search engines convert better because the traffic will be more targeted and visitors if satisfied with what you are offering will take action.
Kindly share your thoughts in the comment section and if you have further questions or clarification, send us a message here.
Image: Google, Gmail and Pixabay
