If you are having issues with bad website traffic, that typically means one of two things.
Neither of these are great positions to be in, and they must be addressed in order to improve your site traffic. Together, we’ll figure out how to tackle them head-on.
Download 5 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic for basic tips and tricks to bring in traffic.
This is a very common issue, and you're not alone. While we don't want to focus on the volume alone, if you don't have enough traffic, being profitable is much harder. Here are the most common causes if you have low traffic volumes:
A website is not a “set it and forget it” type of thing. Not every SEO strategy must be Fortune 500 level, but even the smallest business should be optimizing their websites on some level.
Looking to see how your website’s SEO holds up? Schedule a free consultation with one of our SEO Specialists!
It is possible that your website is already SEO friendly, but there's something stopping the search engines from actually listing it in results. The best place to check on this is Google Search Console.
These are slightly different from indexing issues, but the end result is the same. If Google and the other search engines can't "crawl" your website, they can't see all of your content and website pages - and if they can't see it, they can't rank it! Again, a good place to check the status of this is Google Search Console.
Search engines need content to rank your site. They cannot tell what you offer from images alone. The more high quality content pages you have, the higher the chances are that you'll rank - and the higher you rank, the more high-quality traffic you will likely start to see!
It is possible that a search engine has removed you from search results because you have been penalized. This most commonly occurs when a website utilizes "black hat" SEO tactics (applied by an amateur website owner or a shady SEO provider). If your website traffic suddenly drops off, you need to take immediate action to discover the cause and implement an appropriate solution.
Believe it or not, this can be just as bad as the previous issue. Ultimately, you need your website visitors to turn into leads and sales so you can make money, right? That's not going to happen if they don't even spend enough time on your website to find out what you are all about.
To learn how to optimize your website and increase lead generation, check out these free eBooks: 25 Website Must-Haves and the 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks, & Ideas.
Here are some common issues that bring in poor quality website traffic:
Not all SEO is created equal, especially if you're comparing moonlighters and DIYers to the pros. Strong SEO will not only focus on getting you more traffic, but better traffic. The best thing to do in this scenario is to have an expert evaluate your site for shady tactics, outdated practices, and anything else that could be hurting your website.
Maybe you have all of the SEO "best practices" in line, but if you are generating the wrong type of visitor, that traffic is useless. You need to revisit your strategy and refocus your efforts on your buyer personas.
It is possible that search engines are indexing you for irrelevant keywords. Using Google Search Console, check to see how Google views your website and which keywords are generating impressions. If they are mostly irrelevant topics, you've got a problem. The good news is that you can use that information to generate a new strategy using much more appropriate keywords!
Sure, there are many issues that can cause bad website traffic, but these are some of the most common. Don't let your SEO slide hoping it will fix itself, because it never will - in fact, it will probably get worse as the best practices change over time.
Download Why You Can't Afford Cheap SEO to learn why cheap and dirty SEO will hurt your business much more than it could ever help.