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If you are thinking of starting your own website, or currently own one and aren’t sure how to increase your traffic, I have compiled a list of five of the basic things you need to know of running a business online and getting the most benefit from it. When you own and run a website, you want to make it as profitable as possible, and the best way to begin is by increasing traffic by giving quality content and knowing how to attract people. Here are the recommended 5 key ways to get the best from your website:

1. SEO

Using SEO is something you will hear a lot about as almost everything online is based on it. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, this alone is self-explanatory but to break it down into simple steps, it means:

a. A person types a question or statement into a Google, Bing or another search bar.

b. The search engine (Google, Bing, other) crawls the internet to find elements of this question/statement on available websites.

c. Pulling from website ‘keywords’ (covered below), domain rating, and general topics (amongst other elements but I’m going to keep it as simple as possible for now) the search engine will give a selection of website pages that give the most to the reader based on keywords, popularity and relevance.

d. Optimisation is getting the best from your website and ensuring by covering all relevant information using keywords, backlinks and other elements, you are optimising your site and ensuring it comes up in search engine for prospective customers.

To set your website up for SEO, I would recommend talking to a professional who specialises in SEO and can do that element for you. An alternative is investing in some affordable courses. There are lots of cheap and even free courses to learn for yourself.

SEO requires the use of keywords which I mentioned above and these are important for getting your website regular hits. Before you do anything with your site, you will need to know your prospective customer base and their demographic – gender, age, where they live, interests etc. It also helps to know what they search for – there are lots of tools but a couple I use are Answer The Public and Google Ads has a keyword planner.

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2. Backlinks

Backlinks are links on other people’s websites that direct people to yours. In order to build SEO backlinks are a key element. Contact businesses who you know will benefit from information or services on your site, build a rapport with them and ask them to refer to your site in blog articles. Another way to build up backlinks is doing guest blogs on established sites. Through these, you can refer to your own site throughout (with links) or have an author bio on that site with information about you and your site linked. Be careful who you choose to guest blog for or be referred to as SEO depends on reputable sources. Keep in mind that in order to build that rapport with fellow businesses, it’s important to have great content that deserves to be shared and shouted about. Backlinks also help to increase your domain rating.

3. Domain Rating

A domain rating is a search engine ranking score given to your site based on your authority in SEO. This number is between 0 -100 and is based on a number of factors: Backlinks, quality content and how trustworthy your information is. The higher your domain rating, the more likely you will be featured on the much-coveted first page in a Google search. A domain rating is not something you can achieve overnight. Have patience with yourself and your work as this is something built over time. Start with a target of an average score of 40 and keep working from here. Check out this link and enter website address to see their domain. You will see they are ranked based on backlinks, keywords and how big their site is.

4. Keywords

You may have noticed I have mentioned keywords repeatedly now. To research keywords used in searches, good sources are Answer The Public and Google Ads, which has a keyword planner. Pick keywords that match your offering and when starting out, pick those which have medium to low competition. If it’s marked as high competition then you will have no chance of ranking amongst established sites. Have a spreadsheet with these keywords and be mindful of them when writing articles, using these words throughout. If you have a WordPress site, there are SEO plugins that are beneficial to help you see if your articles are written well. Find some of these listed here.

5. Quality Content

I have mentioned quality content throughout and I really can’t stress enough how key it is to getting noticed. When people repeatedly engage with your content, your SEO and domain rating go up. Providing insightful or engaging content leads to recommendations on social media by others. If you are consistently using keywords in the right way and holding the reader’s attention, this drives up your SEO. Ensure all your content is well thought out, planned, strategised and written well and you will be a winner! I know I say it like it’s the easiest thing in the world, it is not – it takes so much time to plan and set out but I promise, it is so worth it when you start to reap the benefits!

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I hope you have found the above helpful. Let me know in the comments below if you have anything you would like me to cover, or alternatively, email me at info@ciaramorgan.com.