Why Is There No Traffic To My Website?

Are you concerned that your website isn’t getting as much traffic as you would like, and you’re not sure how to fix that?

Consistent traffic is one of the reasons that we build a website because if you’re not getting visitors, then it’s not doing its job.

But instead of worrying about quantity, let’s also talk about quality.

Have you ever thrown one heck of a party where you left no stone unturned and thought of everything your guests would need to have a great time? You know, one of those bashes that friends talk about for a long time. After which, your friends stop you and ask to be invited to the next or show up because you provide an open invitation to all.

The same goes for inviting people to your website and blog. You need to think about all the information your audience would find helpful. The things that would answer their questions and get them talking about it to others. It’s time to have a party with your website content.

Your site may not be SEO ready

Most WordPress sites are set up to be SEO-ready or searchable, but there are instances where pages are not being indexed because your site is telling Google not to search it.

This can happen due to a setting not being correctly changed or something else in one of the files is blocking a search engine from crawling your site.

The easiest way to fix this is by adding an SEO plugin like SEOPress, Slim SEO, or even Yoast. These plugins are not designed to do the SEO work for you, but they give you a good guideline on how to improve your articles so that your post can start ranking in the search engines.

You also want to make sure that your headlines are compelling and click-worthy. Headlines are the first thing a potential client or visitor sees before deciding whether to visit your site.

You also want to make sure that you have a description that is equally as compelling. Your description not only tells the user what the article or the page is about but gives them a call to action so that they want to visit and find out more.

Your content may be weak

Google is a great source for free traffic, but getting your content to rank number one is hard. There’s a lot of competition, and only the best rise to the top.

If you’re pumping out mediocre blog posts and articles to show that you have published content on your site, then, of course, you’re not going to rank high, and the traffic won’t come.

A few things to keep in mind when you’re writing content for your readers and the topics they are interested in are:

• Is it fresh? You must provide a fresh perspective, even if it’s an old topic.
• Is it useful? Getting your readers to stay means making the information useful.
• Is it actionable? We want to be able to take action on the information that we read.
• Is it accurate? Unbiased and well-researched information will win out every time.

Driving traffic is one thing; getting your people to stay and see beyond what actually brought them there in the first place is another.

And you want to make sure you write for the buyer’s journey. Everyone isn’t in the same place or has the same needs. Some of your traffic is the initial research, While others are ready to make that buy and may need just a little more information on their decision.

On top of that, Google is getting better at understanding the intent behind a user search query. If you optimize for the intent of your target audience, you’re more likely to see traffic to your website and an attraction of potential customers.

Your target keywords aren’t right

Content marketing should start with keyword research because they are important to search engine rankings.

There are only ten places available on the first page of Google’s search results. And search engines are trying to display pages of trusted websites that meet their ranking criteria. Couple that with popular keywords that many people are targeting, and you can see where the problem of ranking on page one is.

We tend to pick keywords we think the search bots will love rather than being based on customer intent. And we often don’t focus on the long-tail keywords or terms our customers may be searching for.

So, while you’re looking for keywords, you should focus on the topics for the solutions you provide. Use keyword tools to find highly searched phrases and also resources like Answer the Public or Quora.

Don’t be afraid to take advantage of Google’s autocomplete and related searches because you never know what nuggets you’ll find in those.

Remember, when you are writing and utilizing keywords, you want to write for the audience, not the search engine or keyword stuff. Not only will you turn the reader off, but the search engines do not like that, and we’ll rank you lower.

You’re only creating and not promoting

Even with the best content, you still need to get the reach and find the people. If you’re consistent in your blogging and creating, the chances are that you’ll gain some organic traffic, but that may not be enough.

If your strategy is to hit publish and hope that they will come, then you aren’t going to get the traffic you would get if you were actively promoting your blog posts. You want to apply the 80/20 rule with 80% promotion and 20% creation.

There are a lot of places where you can promote your blog posts, including social media channels.

You also want to be sure that when you’re answering questions geared toward an article you’ve written, you can reference that article as part of your answer. Most people don’t consider this act of promotion unless you are brazen and that the only way you answer questions is to offer up articles that you’ve written.

Of course, there are ads to boost your post, but I would use those as a last resort because if the article doesn’t solve the issue or you don’t have a clear call to action, it’s like wasting your money to bring traffic and not have it be relevant.

You also want to be sure that your content is shareable. This is easily achieved by adding a social sharing plugin to your site or functionality like click to tweet for those whose audience can be found on Twitter.

Let’s wrap this up

Of course, driving traffic is the primary rule of your website. But without the right traffic, it’s going to be for naught. You want to ensure that your content is relevant to your solutions and that the topics appeal to your audience.

Many other factors go into ranking number one for Google, including site speed and usability, but you need the basics, to begin with, and the information above should help you get there.

Also, remember that a visitor with different needs comes to you at different places on the journey. So you want to make sure that your content address is a variety of information at the different buying levels.

And finally, stop writing with the purpose of going viral and start creating with the purpose of being helpful, relevant, and trustworthy.

Need help with traffic to your website? Why not start with a website audit?