To scale your business, you need more leads, and to get more leads, you need more website traffic from prospects interested in your product or service. Higher traffic is a fundamental part of how to get on the 1st page of Google. If you do not see the performance you want in your website traffic, or perhaps you see no website traffic at all, it’s time for a change ASAP.
But what do you do when you feel like you’re doing everything right, and you’re still getting no website traffic or not seeing the results you want? Understandably, it can be discouraging. It might seem like there’s no rhyme or reason as to why you’re not getting website visits.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for getting on the 1st page of Google, there are several reasons why you might not be getting the website traffic you want. By evaluating all of these factors, you can slowly narrow it down and find a winning solution to boost your search engine results page (SERP) rank and increase your website traffic.
Your Content Isn’t Valuable
If you want to learn how to get on the 1st page of Google by increasing traffic to your site, start with producing high-quality, valuable content.
One study found that nearly three-quarters of SEO experts think valuable content is the most critical factor for an SEO-friendly site, and SEO impacts your rank, which then impacts your traffic. If you’re not producing relevant, juicy content, no one is going to stick around or come back again.
Just as important as driving traffic is keeping the traffic. If your content isn’t interesting and valuable to visitors, they’re bound to hop off just as soon as they got on to your site.
Start creating content with accurate information, a good mix of text and media, shorter, more direct paragraphs, real data and statistics, and authority links. You may be surprised what spending more time on creating value-rich content can do for you.
Your SEO Is Lacking
There’s a good chance you see no website traffic because your SEO game is not as good as it should be. We already touched on the SEO value of good content. Still, here we’re talking about the technical SEO data that too many business owners forget about when trying to create a robust digital presence.
Technical SEO includes features like title tags and meta descriptions, which a searcher will see on the SERP when browsing the available links. If your titles and meta descriptions that preview the content to come are vague, don’t include main keywords, or feel too salesly, chances are people will just scroll past them.
There are also several tools that you could use to improve your SEO, like SEMrush.
These kinds of programs can automate your SEO efforts to make attracting more traffic more effortless than ever.
You’re Not Attracting Attention with Your Headlines
If you’re still trying to figure out how to get on the 1st page of Google, try taking a good, hard look at your headlines. There’s a fine line between a too-good-to-be-true clickbait headline and a good, click-worthy headline.
The headline is similar in purpose to the good technical SEO data: it’s the data that’s visible on the SERP, so you need to make it count.
To ensure your headline is doing the job it’s supposed to, follow this winning formula created by marketer Jeff Goins:
X + Adjective + Keyword + Promise
Here, X = any number that works for your headline. Here’s an example:
10 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid to Get More Website Traffic
See? Powerful.
You Don’t Have Enough Link Equity
Another good reason why you’re getting no website traffic is a lack of quality backlinks. We like to think of this in terms of link equity, which describes the authority that can pass on from one link to the next through backlinks.
When you can include authority links in your content and get other authority sites to link back to your content, you’ll build domain authority. This credibility will gradually help you climb your way in the SERP ranks and increase site traffic.
The thing to remember here is that your focus should be on backlink quality. Google algorithms don’t care about backlink volume—they prioritize quality.
If you want to improve your link equity and get more backlinks, look for established websites in the same industry that aren’t direct competitors and inquire about guest posting.
Your Keyword Competition Is Too High
You might be amazed at how to get on the 1st page of Google when we tell you a big part of it is using keywords with less competition. Yes, they might not have as high a search volume as the shorter keywords, but you’re also not competing with thousands or millions of web pages all competing for a good rank for that search term.
Even if your content is more valuable than anything else competing for a short-tail keyword, it would be hard to get a high ranking. You can be sure that everyone in a given industry will also be competing for that word and have the writing and SEO resources to outplay the little guy.
Instead of getting lost in the masses, look to long-tail keywords. It will help you target niche searches relevant to you and attract visitors who are specifically interested in what you have to offer.
Long-tail keywords focus on more specific keywords and phrases. For example, instead of competing for ‘Orlando roof repair,’ you could instead aim for ‘hurricane damage roof in Orlando” or “Orlando roof emergency hail repair.”
You Forget About Marketing
Anyone eager to discover how to get on the 1st page of Google probably realizes just how important marketing is when it comes to website traffic. So if you’re seeing no website traffic coming in, or at least not as much as you’d like to see, it might be time to take a step back and evaluate your marketing strategy.
Even if you have the best content out there, people won’t know about it unless you promote it. So don’t just simply publish a blog and hope for the best; spend ample time promoting it and marketing it so people can find it.
Some marketers use the 80/20 rule (spend 80% of your time/budget on promotion and 20% on creation), but you should find a ratio that works for you, whether that’s 60/40 or 50/50. Just don’t let your promotion fall to the wayside.
Your Website Leads to Poor User Experience
Nothing will take you from little website traffic to no website traffic faster than a poor user experience. As previously discussed, it’s not just about getting traffic to your page—it’s also about getting traffic to stay on your page.
Someone who visits your site, realizes it is slow to load, and bounces back to Google searching for other services isn’t going to help your business grow. Ensure you’re offering a good, intuitive user experience for every site visitor by optimizing your site navigation and using clear calls to action.
It’s also hard to overstate the importance of page loading speeds. Nearly 70% of users say slow page loading reduces their chances of returning to a site in the future. Don’t let an outdated, slow website impact your user experience.
The Algorithm Changed
It can be a mystery trying to decipher how to get on the 1st page of Google. Part of that reason is the algorithm changes that can often catch us by surprise.
You can be performing really well for a certain keyword, and out of nowhere, your rank drops. Why? It’s because there was likely a change to the algorithm, and there’s a good chance it was Panda or Penguin. The two algorithm updates serve as filters to penalize poor content, bad links, or keyword stuffing.
To escape these filters, you’ll need to figure out what on your site provoked a penalty and how you can fix it. Some possible culprits and fixes include:
- Poor site quality—assess your site objectively, looking out for low-quality pages. Rewrite them, use 301 redirectors, and add more supporting pages beneath the main topic.
- Cloaking, keyword stuffing, or hidden text—find them, get rid of them, and then tell Google you fixed the issue.
- Manual Actions aka no added value in the content—re-write your content and create more nuanced, unique value.
- User-generated spam comments—clean up this spam and put nofollow links on the page and CAPTCHA requirements for comments to keep them to a minimum.
- Overused backlinks in a guest post—revise the guest post content or remove altogether.
Your Site’s Not Mobile Responsive
If you’re seeing low or no website traffic on your site, it could also be due to a lack of mobile responsiveness. Over 60% of all Google searches today come from mobile devices, so your website must allow people to view on their phones or tablets with ease.
If you don’t have a mobile version of your site optimized, there’s a good chance people will bounce from your site. They expect to see web pages made for mobile viewers, or they’ll leave. Take the time to build out an intuitive mobile site version and watch your traffic increase from mobile searches alone.
You Don’t Have Social Media
If you don’t have social media promoting your site, then it’s no wonder you’re seeing no website traffic. While social media is not the end-all and be-all of your website traffic, it’s an essential aspect of promotion.
You can build a large and loyal online community by fostering engagement on major social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. You could also break into the more niche sites, like Reddit, where subreddits can amass thousands of followers per thread.
But you don’t need to dive in headfirst. Take it slow, starting with just one or two channels at a time. Get deeply engaged in these communities, and be sure to post consistently. Create a professional but likable profile that will instill trust in your followers and provide valuable content that they’ll recognize as unique from what else is there.
Final Thoughts
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to boosting your status from no traffic to steady traffic and ranking better on a SERP, but working your way through this list of strategies is the best route to getting there.
Now that you’ve added to your repertoire of how to get on the 1st page of Google, apply your SEO knowledge and look forward to higher traffic.
