Find out how we increased a client's website traffic by 62% in just three months, and how you can do it too, without paid ads.
Anyone who owns a website would, at one time or another, have asked themselves “How can I get more traffic to my website for free?” We sure have! It comes down, like anything, to the balance of time and money. In this post we will outline exactly how we increased a client’s website traffic by 62% in just three months, with no paid ads, and we’ll also share a list of other juicy improvements.
This article is particularly relevant if you have either of these questions on your mind:
But first, whet your appetite with these lovely numbers that show the 62% increase in website traffic, increase in sessions by 78% and increase in time on site by over 14%, all within three months. We’ll show you exactly what we did.
The bonus is that anything you implement from this post will also help your paid ad campaigns, if you are running those. But for now, keep in mind that this client has run no paid ads at all in the three-month period we will focus on.
The best part about this is that increasing our client’s website traffic by such a big jump was not complicated.
Here are the exact steps we took:
As well as increasing the website traffic, the site’s session duration increased by over 14%.
This is a valuable metric because, as stated earlier, the longer people spend on your site, the more likely they are to take the action you want them to take.
People will go to all sorts of lengths to increase “time on site”. One SEO person recently tweeted that she even uses vertical images at every opportunity, simply because it requires people to scroll further down the page.
For our purposes, we focus on creating content that is genuinely useful. If the content answers the question that the reader has and leads them to the next positive step, it’s done the job.
We are about to begin work on the client’s second website, while also continuing work on the original site.
You can do this in-house - follow the steps below.
“Many SEO firms will tell you that it takes 4 to 6 months to start seeing results.” (Forbes)
A usual method is for an agency to spend the first month doing “research and discovery”, the second month beginning the technical SEO work, the third month focusing on content creation, then from month four the focus is on continued content creation, cleaning up low-quality links, and building social media campaigns into the mix.
We ain’t got time for that.
While 30 days is a big ask, we get onto things right away, doing the keyword research and starting the technical SEO right from month one, while getting the first four blog posts written and published to the site.
The keyword research and technical SEO then continues each month, right alongside the content creation.
There are a number of steps you should take in your first month to help Google’s search engine find your site and increase your website traffic.
Lighthouse is an open-source resource provided by Google to help you improve the quality of your web pages. It takes only a couple of minutes to run the audit, and the report generates a list of recommendations on how you can improve the page.
To run Google’s Lighthouse audit, right-click on your website, choose ‘Inspect’ and then click ‘Lighthouse’ at the top of the pane.
Choose whether you want the report for Desktop or Mobile performance (the toggles toward the right, and then click ‘Generate Report’.
You will then see the recommendations for your page based on four areas:
Here is a screenshot of one for our agency, where you can see that our images loaded as .jpeg and .png are creating a load on the site and lowering performance. When we convert those to webP files (Next-gen formats), the report states we will reduce our load time by over 10 seconds.
As a comparison, here is the report from Google’s own Lighthouse page at the time of writing (just so that you don’t get all discouraged on your site’s performance … just keep at it!)
Cover these basics as you create each blog post or page on your website.
Make sure you have created a Frequently Asked Questions section on your site. When you answer real questions (instead of what you think people should know) you build immediate relevance. The bonus is that this section can also help to increase the time people spend on your site - a great metric both in the eyes of Google and in the bigger priority of sales … the more time people spend there, the more likely they are to click through and buy.
If you are a service-based business, let people know what they need to have in place before they work with you, how much lead time you might need, and set clear expectations.
A clear ‘About’ page instantly builds kudos towards showing that you are an expert on your topic. In the page, also make sure to include anything that shows your concrete authority in the industry.
Include “social proof” - endorsements from people who have worked with you - and share your brand’s values. If you have a long term vision, share it right from the outset. Many people will be attracted to your ideas, and decide that “if that’s where you’re going, I want to come too.” (Side note: for an excellent resource on creating a very effective “Vivid Vision”, pick up Cameron Herold’s book of the same name.)
Labeling images is something often overlooked, but when you do, your site’s images can be found on Google Image Search. Use your keywords as part of your images’ alt text, and you’re good to go!
For the client in this case, we published one blog post each week. The sky is the limit and will be dictated by your resources. But the key truly is:
Speaking of calls to action, if you would like help, you can contact us to run an SEO audit and provide you with a recommended list of blog topics that will get you through your first three months.
Alternatively, you can have us do it for you.
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