How to increase visits to your website

Do you feel like your website isn’t getting visited enough?

Let's explore a few tips on how to turn that situation around.

Share regularly on social media. 

You have to let your audience know about your website. You've grown your business and know that it requires hard work. You’ll have to use a similar approach with your website and share it regularly to let people know it has excellent evergreen content or offers.

Regularly sharing content from your website will let your audience share it, which can create a domino effect. It’s like your business. You keep pushing until you get noticed, then you slow down. But the customers familiar with your service will let others know about it.

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Linkedin are great places to start. If you already have an audience on one of these platforms, start sharing content and perhaps start building an audience on other social media site.

Tip: Create a story with helpful information and share it. 

Create a story on a web page and share the link on social media. Set a tiny achievable target, a story from your experience or news consisting of few paragraphs with an image. Don't assume others already know the information. Share your knowledge!

Create a to-do list with 2-3 story titles. Knowing you have a story title can motivate you to write a post. Maybe set a phone reminder to write once a week, in the morning.

Ideas for posts could include a tip or list of tips, news, recipes, recommendations, or pitfalls. 

At this point, you might be asking, Why not use only social media? The answer is that social media and your business website must co-exist to produce the maximum marketing results.

Improve your landing page

The online user’s attention span is very narrow. You have few seconds to impress, and first impressions are everything.  Imagine you have 15 seconds to show off your business. The messaging has to be direct and straightforward. Too much content will only confuse the user.

Tip: The sentences on top of the page should state exactly what your business does.

If you’re a plumber, just let the users know, "I do plumbing". The users who land on your page are already looking for the services you provide. That's why they’re on your website. Your landing page should simply clarify that they’re in the right place.

Tip: Move or remove distracting information.

Remember, you have around 15 seconds, so get rid of any distraction that might cause a user to leave the website. Think of content you can move further down the page or to another page. If the users are interested, they’ll browse more and find the details.

Tip: Provide contact details so users can act. 

If users can't find how to contact you quickly, they won't. Add your phone, email, a button to a contact form or add a contact form on the page.

Tip: Add Call to Action buttons on the page.

Users won’t take action unless you remind them to do it. Place a button (or a few buttons if the page is long) to remind your users to buy or contact you. Most websites have "Call us now" or "Schedule a meeting now" buttons. Users are used to seeing these.

Make your content easy to scan

People primarily scan web pages rather than read. Adjust your pages to make them convenient for the users to scan.

Tip: Put the most important information at top of the page.

Allow people to understand your key messages quickly while scanning. 

Tip: Use headings and subheadings. 

Separate the content into sections with headers on top. People will scan and read the sections they find interesting.

Tip: Use plain language and short, clear sentences. 

The reader's brain burns calories while trying to understand a sentence. Imagine you’re talking to a person running next to you. How much information can the person digest while running? Straightforward, easily digestible sentences will improve your pages.

Tip: Limit the content of an article to a single topic.

Describe only one topic in your articles. Users will feel like they found exactly the information, service, or product they were looking for. Remove popup windows or sections on the left or right that might distract the reader.

Tip: Focus on quality content over quantity

Having a lot of content on your web page might have  helped you maybe five years ago, but Google updated their algorithms. The newest Google's RankBrain Algorithm is smart enough to recognize whether a user has had a good experience on the page. Today, the user experience is what matters. Create copy that can help others thrive.

Tip: Use images.

"A picture is worth a thousand words." Users are more likely to stay on a page that has pictures. Images can stimulate the user’s imagination, which often improves their overall experience (because it burns fewer calories than reading). 

Tip: Attach a YouTube video to your web page

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Videos are taking over the internet. Create a YouTube video and share it on your website. Link your website within the YouTube video description. Take advantage of the platform and present your business on YouTube. It’s the second popular search engine after Google for driving visits to your website.

Make your website mobile-friendly

Users use smartphones to search for local businesses or content.

98.3% of users on Facebook use mobile devices more than a desktop. 

Google search will prioritize websites that display well on smartphones, tablets, and other devices. You can test whether your site is mobile-friendly using a tool designed by Google.

Tip: Hire a Web designer to make your website mobile-friendly. 

Your designer’s skills will have to align with the technology your website uses. You might have to spend time and resources to find a good match.

Tip: Get a website that’s already mobile-friendly.

Have you considered moving your website to a mobile-friendly platform? At DIY Websites Ireland, our goal is to deliver websites optimized for smartphones. Get in touch with us if you'd like to learn more.

Speed up your page loading

Imagine what will happen if your website takes five seconds to open when you have just a few seconds to impress the user. Users can recognize when a website is slow, even if it’s by a fraction of a second. 

After May 2021, Google Search will promote websites that provide a better page viewing experience for users. How quickly your web pages load is now essential for getting more page visits. Google offers a tool you can use to test the page-loading of your website.

Tip: Reduce the size of your images. 

A smaller image size (not resolution) will result in a faster website. We use a free Tiny PNG tool to reduce our picture sizes. Reduce your image size using a tool like this, then upload it to your page.

Tip: Hire a developer to speed up your website. 

Developers are expensive. Test your website using the Google tool first. If your website doesn't show scores in the red zone, hiring a developer might not be worth it.

Tip: Invest in Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). 

AMP is a technology designed by Google. AMP pages are blazing fast, so your website page will load almost instantly. Google will prioritize your website’s AMP pages for smartphones and other mobile devices, allowing you to get ahead of your competition. 

At DIY Websites Ireland, every webs page we build is an Accelerated Mobile Page. Get in touch with us if you'd like to learn more!

Are you feel overwhelmed by all the tips above? Well, we’ve prioritized the tips from most to least important to make it easier for you to decide what to do next. We can help too!

We can help you improve your digital presence. It's easy!