If I only had one hour today to do three key things to help boost a website’s SEO and Google traffic as we go into 2021…it would be these three tasks:
- I would look at my back linking and outreach strategy, and decide if you’re not gaining enough back links, or too many back links. Unnatural back linking is a big issue, so depending on your website, you should certainly place your content where others will see it but also produce great content in the first place. Remember back links are like votes of confidence, so you need them. But in 2020, leading into 2021, less is more, and if Google sees daily back link building to a website where the content doesn’t warrant that much popularity, then Google is going to think something’s a bit off about the link profile and velocity of link building. In terms of the positives of back linking – remember, you’ll get traffic from not only the link itself but the effect that the link has on Google results. Obviously relevancy and quality of back link is also a key factor that Google will look at.
- Another top factor right now, leading in 2021, is the user journey. Following on from point 1 about less is more in terms of back linking – Google actually looks more at the time on site, number of pages visited per session (bounce rate) and so on. So ensure your website’s usability, UX, and so on, is optimised. For this, it’s again about unique, high quality content, that really engages people but also technical SEO, so ensuring there’s no broken links (404s) etc. To achieve this, if you don’t already have content calendar then draft one up, so you have a content implementation strategy in place. But also try a click tracking and heat mapping service such as Hotjar or Lucky Orange. This will enable you to see where people are clicking off your page, having trouble navigating or just generally getting lost or confused about the next steps whilst they’re on your website.
- Each business is different but there are common themes and thinks we all can do to get more traffic. In our business for instance, there’s saturation like with many businesses, but there’s always niches. One bit of advice I can give is move with the times and innovate – keeping moving forward and pushing forward rather than repeating what doesn’t work. The third tip is all about leveraging social media and I’m sure you’ve herd that social media is powerful for driving traffic. The thing I’ll say is the algorithms on many social networking sites will favour you keeping their visitors on their site, rather than getting them to click off onto your website. However, the ultimate aim should be to take visitors to your website and every business should have a website. Having said that, the way in which you should use a website and social media are distinctly different. For example, a direct message in social media will always reach the person you’re contacting, whereas an email will not necessary as it could go into spam. So that’s tip 3.1 if you like – use direct messaging more. And get straight to the point when doing so. Ultimately though tip 3.2 is to create a list, an email list of contacts and if you’re in the UK you’ll know that GDPR is vitally important to have in mind when you’re doing so. So create some great content on your website and put a few lead magnets on, to add even more value to your audience. Also understand the lay of the land when it comes to which social networks to use for your business. It’s great to repurpose content to post to a few of them maybe two or three to start then grow from there. You can use Hootsuite, Sprout Social and a range of other solutions to help manage this. Again as in point two, have a content calendar and strategy so you’ll be able to plan ahead.
