Anyone who has ever operated their own website knows that traffic, that is, website visitors, is essential to the success of the business. After all, what good is a website if no one visits it?
In this article we explain how to improve the website to increase traffic.
Improving the website: approaches for an optimal online presence
Target the website to the target group
The first and one of the most important steps to improving your website is to target your target group. Your website in terms of tone, optics (web design), usability, navigation and accessibility must be fully oriented towards your customers. There is a big difference for your website if your target audience is mainly 45 year old men or 17 year old teenagers.
Only the preparation of the content, for example text content vs. video content, is completely different. The more precisely your website is tailored to the target group, the more likely your customers are to visit the website again. Returning users are an essential component of increasing website traffic.
Improve your website loading time
This is advice that has been heard countless times in recent years. However, this advice cannot be expressed often enough. Only technically clean websites load quickly and therefore satisfy users.
Who doesn't know the phenomenon that a website seems to have finished loading and rebuilds or moves just at the moment you want to click on something. This phenomenon is called layout change and it is not without reason that it has been one of the famous Google Core Web Vitals since a Google Core update was released in 2021.
You can improve the loading time of your website by doing the following:
- Avoid superfluous images, graphics and videos.
- Compress images.
- Specifies the width and height of images so that they are not calculated by the browser.
- Use WebP image format.
- Reduce CSS and JavaScript files.
In the free PageSpeed Insights tool, you can test and verify the loading time and basic data of your website.
Improve the usability of your website
Website usability is also closely linked to loading time. Especially if your website has a lot of clickable elements, you have a web store, or is frequently accessed via a smartphone, you need to think seriously about the usability of your website.
Because a website that is not user-friendly represents an additional obstacle for potential customers, the result is a high bounce rate and a website that does not fulfill its real purpose. The usability of your website can be improved with the following approaches:
Optimal viewing on all devices
The first important step towards successful usability is what is known as responsive web design. This ensures that your website displays optimally on all end devices, whether it's a computer screen, iPhone, tablet or Samsung smartphone.
Consistency in layout/layout and menu navigation
Humans are creatures of habit who are reluctant to deal with new designs and other changes. The structure of the page and menu navigation must be and remain as logical and intuitive as possible. Many business owners try to stand out from the crowd with their website. Which is a sensible approach, but often at the expense of usability.
Focus on the usual menus of everyday life online and try not to reinvent the world. If adjustments need to be made to your website, try not to overwhelm your customers. Make changes one at a time instead of all at once.
Readability and accessibility
The effect of fonts, colors and contrasts is often underestimated. Most large companies use black font on a white background or white font on a black background because these combinations provide optimal contrast. Even when it comes to the color of the links, very few websites are eye-catching and prefer to stick with the classic dark blue, like the one Google uses, for example.
If you want to offer your customers complete freedom of choice, you could even think about a dark mode. You should also take a close look at font sizes and button sizes if you want to improve the usability of your website.
Optimize website for Google
If you want your website to perform better in all aspects, there is no way around website search engine optimization. Although all the above tips also contribute to better rankings on Google, there are some other SEO measures that should not go unmentioned. You can make the following improvements to your website to optimize it for Google:
Create useful content
The most important starting point for optimizing your website for Google is to create useful content. Creating quality content starts with good copy that offers real value to your readers, but also includes image and video content.
Keyword Research
What sounds boring is one of the most important measures to optimize your website for search engines. Think about what search terms (keywords) you want to rank well for. Consider whether and how often this search term is searched, and whether your company also offers the solution. Create a separate subpage for each individual keyword, where you focus exclusively on this topic. The researched keyword must be used on the respective subpage in the headers as well as in the body of the text, the so-called title tag and in the meta description.
Put yourself in your clients' shoes
To best meet your customers' needs, you must put yourself in their shoes. This often makes their search intent more understandable, which in turn helps you create the right content for the respective search term.
Update your content
Google prefers fresh content in its search results. For you, this means that the information on your website should be reviewed at regular intervals and updated if necessary.
Link your content sensibly
Links are still an important aspect in the SEO business. You don't always have to be a backlink from an external website, internal links often work wonders too. Create a concept of what content you would like to specifically strengthen on Google and link to these pages several times on your own website.
Linking to Google Search Console
Last but not least, you should link your website to Google Search Console (GSC). Google Search Console helps you improve your website technically and in terms of content. If Google discovers technical errors, you will be notified in the GSC. You can also easily monitor your page rankings and search terms in Search Console.
Improve the security of your website
Cybercrimes are increasing every year. Therefore, website security is becoming more and more important. There are numerous ways to make your website more secure for you and your customers. The following factors can be improved:
- SSL Certificate – The first important step towards a secure website is encryption using an SSL certificate. This ensures the exchange of sensitive data in the best possible way, meaning that hackers and cybercriminals cannot simply intercept or read data.
- Updating open source programs: Unfortunately, the risks and disadvantages of old websites are often underestimated. Most security breaches arise because a program has not been improved or received an update for a long time. The Internet community continually improves open source solutions, quickly recognizes bugs and security gaps, and fixes them in a very short time.
- Secure login details: Secure passwords are essential for the security of your website. Ideally, you should use 12-digit passwords with a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. The longer your password is, the more secure it will be.
As you can see, there are many different approaches to website improvement. At the same time, one motto is in the foreground for all these measures: make users satisfied with the website. If you are aware that you are not designing the website for yourself but for your clients, you have almost won.
