In the last few years, the internet has changed drastically. The quality of websites created nowadays is way ahead of those that were created a few years back. With the help of WordPress SEO along with different plugins that WordPress support, the websites created are fully optimized, lightweight and secure.
Once the websites are developed with optimum features and settings with the help of WordPress SEO, it should fetch more and more organic traffic, i.e., traffic should come from search engine results. It can be achieved when the website and the pages show more and more in the search results of different search engines. It depends on multiple factors like products/items that are present on the website, region where the site is live, site contents, number of matching keywords present in the site, etc. Let’s discuss some of the factors that are considered to attract more organic traffic to the website.
12 Tips on How to Increase Traffic on WordPress Website and Blog
1. Focus on Searched Content
Before a business and its website come into existence, it is essential to know whether the products or the items that will be presented to the audience are needed or not. Also, what is the status of the competitors of your business in the current market; whether the product is in demand, whether the customers are satisfied with the existing items or service or not. Considering all these factors, the business proceeds with website development. The titles, descriptions, meta descriptions should be well composed to give a clear picture of what the site is about. Some good WordPress SEO plugins are efficient and capable to scan the website and suggest keywords based on the content available on the pages.
2. Keyword Research
The website should contain the keyword(s) that the audience is looking for and is in demand. Like during the pandemic, most of the web users have looked for "mask", sanitizer", "medicines" and the sites containing these keywords have gotten a lot more response than it was before. Also, find the supportive words related to the keyword and use that accordingly on the website. If the audience is mostly looking for a K95 mask, it’s good to include K95 as well in the pages. Also, it’s very essential to focus on the content of the site. If the site is about preventive measures for covid, then you should not start selling masks, sanitizers, hand gloves on the site, as that will deteriorate the rank of the site when the user is looking for COVID-19 precaution tips. Also, the user won’t be able to get much info on safety precautions and close the site immediately. This will increase the bounce rate of the site and hence will have adverse effects on the page rank in search results.
3. Visual Content
It is wise to show the graphical content on the website to present the idea more clearly. Any product that is sold out on the WooCommerce site or any service that is provided, should be supported by an image or video showing the exact item or post-service results and outputs (if any). Also, a graph can be added to the site to validate the points that are mentioned in the description or details. For a blog related to cuisine or bikes, it’s a good factor to display the content in a more detailed manner.
4. Improve Page Load Speed
One reason a visitor likes a website is the speed by which the pages load. Whether the visitor is using high-speed internet or Wi-Fi, or someone located in a remote area with limited speed, the website should load within seconds and no lag should be faced. This is a very important aspect to avoid the bounce rate of the website. To have an optimum page load speed, the website should be lightweight. All the high-quality images used in the pages should be well optimized using WordPress SEO so that they don't increase the overall weight of the site. Hosting the website on a well-connected server is good to go ahead. Try avoiding servers located at remote locations. Update the script periodically to optimize and update it.
5. Social Media Presence
Once the website is live, the audience should be made aware of it through different channels. Apart from advertisements, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. can be used. Social media presence helps the audience to trust the business and its authenticity. By the number of followers present, ratings, and reviews present on the posts or the products are shown, the audience believes that the site is legit, and their trust is built on the site. Social media pages are also shown in the search engine results that help to gain a better rank. Social media is also used to inform the regular customers and visitors about new products added to the site or any new service being provided or ongoing offers, discounts, sales that customers can make use of.
6. Keep the Site Updated
The pages that were created during the launch of the site may get old and outdated in the due passage of time. Hence, it is important to keep the pages updated from time to time. Also, it’s good to use the latest themes, categories, tags, and snippets that are being preferred in the current period. Old images can be replaced with new ones, old graphical results should be updated with the latest test results for the products. This way, the site looks fresh and is preferred to be visited by the audience again and again.
7. Internal Links
Whenever some new content is added to the website whether it is related to new items or services, or new posts are done on the blogging website, their respective links should be present at least at 3-4 places on the existing pages. This way, the new posts, and items will have multiple internal linkages and the audience will get to know about the new posts quickly. A good WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast and All in One SEO (AIO SEO) are best in terms of providing suggestions for this. Also, the search engine crawlers will visit the new links and will show them in the related search results effectively.
8. Alt Texts
Alt text or alternate text for an image defines what the image is about. This text is referred to when the related keyword is searched in search engines. This way, the images from the website are displayed when the users look for images in search engines. Also, if certain pages don’t load properly, then the alt text is shown in place of the image and the visitor understands what the image is about. It's good practice to use descriptive names for images like cotton_shirt or new_jeans rather than A0101 or product_f1.
9. Heading Tags
It specifies the size of the words. These words are mostly titles and subtitles. Heading tags can be H1 to H6. Search engine crawlers use these tags to determine the titles and subtitles, look for the keyword in them and if found, showcase them in the search results, thus pulling the details based on tags.
10. Website URL
The URL of the size should be able to describe what the site is about. This is the best way to let the search engine pick up your site and present it in the top result when the user looks for related keywords. Also, the URL should be composed with added security and starting with HTTPS:// so that the visitor can feel safe while browsing and trust the site for any financial transaction.
11. Plugins
WordPress SEO supports multiple plugins which serve different purposes for different types of websites to be developed. Yoast and All in One SEO (AIO SEO) are the most used WordPress SEO plugins that are used widely across the globe. The plugins serve multiple purposes like image optimization, marking the broken internal links (links that are not having URLs), highlighting the created pages that are not linked to the website, etc. Apart from these functionalities, the plugins are used efficiently to create tags, categories, breadcrumbs, sitemaps, create social media links, etc.
12. Titles and Headlines
Titles and headlines should contain the desired keyword that relates most closely to the website. This is the first thing that any visitor will notice in the search result. It should be eye-catching and self-explanatory. Like posts related to tips and tricks should have these words present in the title. A WooCommerce website can use words like "offers", "discounts", "sale", "flat 10% off". A site that compares multiple items and provides reviews can use the terms like "5 best phones in 2021" or "top 5 selling cars in the USA". These words help to relate the keywords that users are looking for in the search engines.
These factors are easy to adapt and increase the organic traffic of the website quickly without any extra effort or changes.
COMMENTS