If you have a business website or are a blogger, then you know that organic traffic is key to your success. But how do you increase organic traffic to your website in 2024?
I know that it can feel like a daunting task. You might not even know where to begin. But keep reading and that will all change.
Simply stated, in order to increase website traffic, you will need to focus on optimizing your website for search engines and creating content that your target audience will find valuable.
Fortunately, there are plenty of effective methods that you can use to achieve this goal.
In this blog post, we will share 19 practical ways to help you increase your website’s organic traffic in 2024.
Let’s get started!
What Is Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic is the term used to describe website visitors who find your site through a search engine, such as Google or Yahoo. These are people who were looking for something specific, typed their search query into the search engine, and found your website as a result.
Unlike paid traffic, which is generated by advertising, organic traffic is free. This makes it a very valuable resource since you don’t have to pay anything to attract these visitors.
SEO Tactics To Increase Organic Search Traffic
There are a number of ways to improve your organic traffic, such as optimizing your website for certain keywords, creating helpful and informative content, and building links from other websites.
Organic traffic is an important part of any website’s success, so if you’re not already focusing on it, now is the time to start. Here are some practical things you can do to get started.
1. Optimize Your Website Meta Tags For SERPs
Meta titles and meta descriptions are the short blurbs that show up in organic search results pages (SERPs), and they are important for both SEO and users.
A meta title is not to be confused with a page title or title of an article. The latter 2 are the titles that are visible on your website, whereas a meta title is a title you see in the SERP results as shown in the image above.
Meta titles should be around 50-60 characters long and should include your primary keyword or a variation of your primary keyword. These titles are one of the most important parts of your content when it comes to SEO. Google Search gives this title the most consideration when it comes to deciding what your page or post should rank for.
Meta descriptions should be around 150-160 characters long. There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not these descriptions help with SEO. What is not debatable is that they are a valuable opportunity to convince visitors to visit your website.
There are a number of plugins that can help you create meta titles and meta descriptions, such as Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack. These plugins will help you to ensure that your titles and descriptions are both informative and keyword-rich, which will help to improve your site’s ranking in SERPs.
2. Have A Fast-Loading Website
A website’s speed is an important factor for both users and Google. In fact, a slow website can have a negative impact on your website’s SEO.
Users want a fast-loading website because they don’t want to wait around for pages to load. They will leave your website if it takes too long to load, which means you are losing potential customers.
Google Search also values website speed. They use it as one of their many ranking factors. If your website is slow, it will risk ranking lower in search engine results pages (SERPs). This means you are missing out on potential website traffic and customers.
There are several things you can do to improve your website’s speed, such as optimizing images, using a caching plugin, and minifying CSS and JavaScript files.
If you have a WordPress website, there are a good number of free plugins that you can use to help you with the list of items. These plugins do all the heavy lifting, so you don’t need to understand programming to implement it.
As far as the mystery of how to know if your load speed is good or not and what may be causing your website to load slowly, you can also use SEO tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GMetrics. They will show you how fast your website loads for both desktop and mobile and what is slowing it down.
Make sure your website is fast-loading so you can keep both users and Google happy and, as a result, get more organic traffic.
3. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Another important thing to consider is whether or not your website is mobile-friendly. If it’s not, then you could be missing out on a lot of potential search traffic.
A recent study by Google showed that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site if they had trouble accessing it and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead.
This just goes to show how important it is to have a website that is easy to use on all devices. If you want to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, there are a few things you can do.
First, you need to make sure that your website is responsive. This means that it will adjust to fit any screen size. You can test this by opening your website on different devices and seeing how it looks.
If your website is not responsive, then you will need to work on fixing that. There are a lot of tutorials online that can help you with this. Once you have a responsive website, the next thing you need to do is optimize your images.
This goes back to what we discussed earlier in the section on having a fast-loading website.
Making your website mobile-friendly is essential if you want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your SEO efforts. By following the tips above, you can make sure that your site is easy to use on all devices and that you’re not missing out on any potential organic search traffic.
4. Improve User Experience
Website user experience (UX) is the overall experience a visitor has when they interact with your website. This includes everything from how easy it is to find what they’re looking for to how easy it is to navigate around the site.
Good website user experience is important because it can impact a website’s conversion rate. In other words, if a visitor has a bad experience on your website, they’re more likely to leave without taking any action, such as buying a product or subscribing to your newsletter.
There are a few things you can do to improve your website user experience:
- Make sure your website is responsive. This means that it will adjust to fit any screen size.
- Keep your navigation simple and easy to use. Don’t make visitors scroll through a lot of pages to find what they’re looking for.
- Make sure your website content is well-written and easy to understand. Use headings and subheadings to break up the text, and use images and infographics to explain complex concepts.
- Remember that not everyone will be familiar with the jargon used in your industry, so make sure to explain things in plain language.
5. Make Your Website Secure
SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer, and it is a security protocol that is used to establish a secure connection between a web server and a browser. This helps to protect the data that is sent between the two devices, and it can also help to improve your website’s SEO.
One of the main reasons why SSL is important is because it can help to improve your website’s security. SSL encrypts the data that is sent between the web server and the browser, which makes it more difficult for hackers to intercept.
SSL is also important for SEO because it can help to improve your website’s ranking in search results. This is because Google has stated that they give preference to websites that are using SSL.
If you want to add SSL to your website, you will need to purchase an SSL certificate and then install it on your web server. You can usually do this through your web hosting control panel. Some hosting providers also offer free SSL.
Once you have installed the SSL certificate, you will need to make sure that your website is accessible via a secure connection (HTTPS). You can do this by changing the settings in your .htaccess file.
If you’re not sure how to do this, you can find instructions online or contact your web host for help. Most hosting providers will help you take care of this.
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6. Ensure All Your Pages Are Working
It goes without saying that it is important that all the pages of your site are working. You probably know the frustration of following a link to a webpage that contains information you are looking for, only to end up on a page that gives a 404 error.
404 Pages are those that cannot be found on a website. They are usually caused by broken links or incorrect URLs.
If a visitor encounters a 404 page, not only will you have you lost a visitor to that page, but will likely also lose that visitor to a competitor site where they are able to find what they were looking for.
Similarly, if that page ranks in Google, but the search engine bots end up at a 404 page every time they crawl that link, Google will decide that that page is no longer available and remove it from the search rankings.
One of the more common causes of 404 errors is when updates are made to your website, but the navigation is not updated accordingly. It is good practice to periodically browse through your website and make sure that all the pages are working.
Alternatively, you can make use of a free SEO tool like AHrefs Broken Link Checker to check for 404 pages.
7. Conduct Primary Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of identifying the right keywords to target for your website or blog.
The first step in conducting detailed keyword research is to identify your target audience. What are they looking for? What are their needs and wants?
Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can start to think about what primary keywords they might be using to find information online.
Primary keywords are the main keywords that pages of your website or blog posts should ideally rank for. For example, the primary keyword for this post is “Increase organic traffic”.
The next step is to do some research to figure out how many people are searching for your primary keyword and how hard it will be to rank for it.
There are a number of different ways to do this, including using keyword tools, search engine trends, and competitor analysis.
Ultimately, the goal of keyword research is to find the right mix of keywords that will help you reach your target audience and achieve your business goals.
8. Expand Your Organic Footprint With Secondary Keywords
If you want to move the needle on your SEO campaigns, you need to consider all the search queries your content may be relevant for.
That means thinking beyond just the primary keyword you’re targeting and instead looking for related terms that you can rank for as well. These are called “secondary keywords”, and they can make a big difference in your results.
Think of it this way:
If your website only comes up for your primary keyword, you could be missing out on a lot of potential traffic. A good number of people may not search for your primary keyword, but rather for closely related terms.
But if you’re ranking for a variety of related terms, you’re increasing your chances of being found. And the more places you show up, the more organic traffic you’re likely to get.
The further along their journey a prospective visitor is, the more specific their search queries become. At the beginning of their journey, someone might do a Google search for “running shoes”. Further down their journey, they may search for “best trail running shoes for men with lower back pain that include an arch”.
We call these long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are often (but not always) easier to rank for, and while they have lower search volume than broad keywords, the website traffic that they attract is more likely to take action.
9. Optimize Your Images For Seo
We have already touched on the importance of adding images to content to improve user experience.
Each of these images is an opportunity to include additional target keywords to your content to help with search engine optimization.
One way to add keywords to your images is by using the “alt” attribute for your images. The alt attribute is used to describe the contents of an image to search engines and other web crawlers.
You can include a variety of different keywords in the alt attribute, including your primary keyword and related terms. This will help your website or blog post rank for those terms.
Another way to optimize your images for SEO is by using file names that include your target keywords. For example, if you have an image of a running shoe, you might name the file “best-running-shoes-for-men.jpg”. This will further help improve your ranking for those keywords.
10. Add Internal Links To Your Content
Internal links are links from one page on a website to another page on the same website. They are an important part of SEO because they help search engines understand the structure of your website and how it’s related to other pages on your site.
Internal links also help improve ranking by passing link juice (or ranking power) from one page to another. This helps “cascade” the ranking power down through your website and increases the likelihood that your pages will rank for their target keywords.
There are a few best practices to keep in mind when creating internal links:
Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text
Anchor text is the text you use to create a hyperlink. When you create an internal link, make sure to use keyword-rich anchor text. This will help send more ranking power to the target page.
Variety Is Key
Don’t just use the same anchor text for all of your internal links. Mix it up and use a variety of different keywords and phrases to help increase your chances of ranking for them.
Keep It Natural
When you’re adding internal links to your content, don’t go overboard. Only include links where it makes sense
Don’t underestimate the power of creating relevant internal links to help you rank in search engines and increase organic traffic to your website.
11. Include Social Sharing Buttons On Your Website
This is one of the easiest ways to attract potential organic traffic from social media platforms.
When someone visits your website and finds information that is useful to them or that they believe will be useful to people they engage with, they are likely to share it on social media like Facebook or Linkedin.
Including social sharing buttons alongside your content makes it easy for them to do this. Once shared, their friends and followers will see the content and may visit your website as a result.
12. Build Backlinks To Your Site
External backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. They are important for SEO because they help to show Google that your website is authoritative and relevant. The more external backlinks you have, the higher your website will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).
There are a few ways to build backlinks to your website. One is to create helpful and informative content that other website owners will want to link to. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, or even videos.
Another way to build backlinks is to reach out to other website owners and ask them to link to your website. This can be done by sending them an email or connecting with them on social media.
If you have a budget, you can also pay for backlinks. There are people who focus on writing guest posts on high authority sites and building backlinks from these guest posts to client sites.
However, it is important to only purchase backlinks from reputable sources. Otherwise, this could do more harm than good for your website’s SEO.
Increase Organic Traffic With Content
It’s no secret that content is a vital part of any successful SEO strategy. But what many people don’t realize is that there is a right way and a wrong way to produce and publish content that will help you increase your organic traffic.
I’ll discuss some of the best methods for creating and promoting content that will bring more visitors to your website.
13. Publish High-Quality Content
When it comes to content, not all content is equal. There is a big difference between low-quality content and high-quality content. Low-quality content is often unoriginal, irrelevant, and spammy. It is often published just to fill up space on a website or to try and get organic search traffic from search engines.
Mediocre content may be original, but does not correlate to the search intent of the reader and, generally, does a poor job of providing value to the reader.
High-quality content, on the other hand, is well-written, original, and relevant to your target audience. It is the kind of content that people will want to read, share, and link to.
If you want to increase traffic to your website, it is important that you focus on publishing high-quality content.
Do Some Keyword Research Before Writing Your Content
Keyword research is a process that should be completed before you start writing any piece of content.
The purpose of keyword research is to find the right keywords and phrases that people are using to search for the kind of content that you’re creating.
Once you have this information, you can then optimize your content around these keywords and phrases to help improve your chances of ranking in organic search results.
14. Create Long-Form Content
When most people think of content, they think of short, easy-to-read articles. After all, who has the time or attention span to read through a 4,000-word article?
Ironically, longer content pieces do far better to generate organic traffic and satisfy website visitors than shorter content pieces.
Long-form content is a type of content that is longer than the average article. It is typically anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 words in length.
The benefits of long-form content include the following:
- It can rank for more keywords – Because long-form content is typically more comprehensive than shorter articles, it has the potential to rank for a larger number of keywords.
- It establishes authority – Longer articles tend to be seen as more authoritative and trustworthy than shorter ones.
- It gets more social shares – People are more likely to share long-form content if they find it helpful or interesting.
If you want to increase organic traffic to your website, consider publishing some long-form content. But don’t just publish any old long article – make sure it is high quality and relevant to your target audience.
The secret to creating long-format content that actually gets read is to do the following:
- Have clear headings to make it easy to skim over the article
- Use short paragraphs
- Break up long content sections with media, bullet points, and lists.
- Include a Table of Contents
If you don’t have the capacity to write long-form content, you could hire a freelance writer to do this for you. It would still be a good idea for you to do the initial keyword research and provide them with a brief, but there are talented freelance writers that can ‘put it to paper’.
15. Find Winning Headlines And Improve Them
When it comes to driving organic traffic to your website, one of the most important factors is your headline. A winning headline will immediately capture the attention of your target audience. A good headline can make the difference between someone clicking through to your content, or scrolling right past it.
But what makes a good headline? And how can you improve existing headlines to drive even more traffic to your website? Here are some tips for writing winning headlines:
- Keep it short and sweet. Your headline should be concise and to the point. Avoid using complex sentence structures or jargon that might confuse your reader.
- Make it clear what your article is about. Your headline should clearly indicate the topic of your article. This will help to ensure that only people who are interested in your topic will click through to your website.
- Use strong keywords. Choose keywords that accurately reflect the content of your article. These keywords should be popular search terms that people are likely to use when looking for information on your topic.
- Be creative. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your headlines. A catchy or unusual headline is more likely to grab attention than a boring or generic one.
Keep these tips in mind next time you’re writing headlines- with a little practice, you’ll be able to write headlines that drive traffic and get results.
Use Keyword-Rich titles
I discussed the importance of adding your primary keyword or a variation thereof to your meta titles. The same is true for the title of your page or post.
To get a better idea of what that primary keyword should be, do a quick search on Google using your target keyword and look at the titles that show up for these keywords. your title should be similar to (if not better than) the existing titles that are already ranking.
Your title should also be catchy and make people want to click on it. A good way to do this is to include numbers or power words in your title.
Here are some examples of headlines that use numbers:
“101 Tips for a Successful Blog”
“50 Ways to Improve Your SEO Strategy”
“The Top 25 Social Media Tools for Businesses”
And here are some examples of headlines that use power words:
“How to Create a High-Converting Sales Funnel”
“The Ultimate Guide to SEO”
“The Secret to Writing Headlines that Get Results“
As you can see, including numbers or power words in your headlines can make a big difference in how many people click through to your website. So if you want to drive more organic traffic to your site, make sure to use keyword-rich titles.
16. Make Use Of Media
If I have hammered the importance of quality content, it is only because it is the lifeblood of your website. After all, what is the point of increasing organic traffic to your website unless you can convert that traffic into buyers or leads or whatever it is that you want to achieve from your site?
One of the best ways to improve the quality and readability of your website content is to use media.
Images, videos, and infographics can help break up long blocks of text and make your website more visually appealing. They can also help you communicate your message more effectively, and make it easier for users to understand your content. Websites like pexels.com and pixabay.com provide free media so this exercise doesn’t need to ramp up any costs on your end.
In addition to improving the user experience, adding media to your website can also help with your SEO. Just remember to optimize your media for SEO. Google places a high emphasis on visuals, so including images and videos can help you rank higher in Google search results.
17. Update Your Content Regularly
Regular content updates are another effective way to improve your website’s ranking. Search engines place a high emphasis on fresh, new content, so updating your website frequently can help you rank higher in search results.
In addition to improving your ranking, updating your content regularly can also help keep your website visitors engaged. If your website visitors see that you’re constantly adding new, relevant content, they’ll be more likely to keep coming back to your site.
To make sure you’re regularly updating your website’s content, set up a content publishing schedule and stick to it. Once you have a schedule in place, try to add new content to your site at least once a week.
This is especially important if you have a blog. If you have a company website with only service pages and no blog, weekly updates will naturally not make sense.
Over and above creating new content, you will also want to refresh some of your existing, older content to keep it relevant.
Updating your website’s content doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. Even small updates can make a big difference. So don’t be afraid to get started – your website will thank you for it!
Increase Organic Traffic With Social Media
By utilizing social media, you can increase your organic traffic and reach a larger audience. When you share your content on these platforms, you are able to reach a larger audience and generate more traffic to your website. Let’s briefly look at how you can increase social media engagement to drive organic traffic.
18. Increase Social Media Engagement To Drive Organic Traffic
In order to maximize the potential of social media, post regularly and interact with your followers. Make sure to include shareable images and links back to your site.
Additionally, you can use hashtags to reach a wider audience and promote your content.
Let’s briefly look at 4 of the most popular social media platforms and how to leverage them to increase your organic traffic:
Facebook is a popular social media platform that can be used to increase social media engagement and drive traffic to your website. In order to maximize the potential of Facebook, it is important to post regularly and interact with your followers.
Here are a few tips on how to use Facebook to increase your organic traffic:
- Post regularly – By posting on a regular basis, you will stay top of mind for your followers and they are more likely to engage with your content.
- Interact with your followers – Take the time to respond to comments and messages as this will create a sense of community and encourage people to interact with your content.
- Use hashtags – Hashtags are a great way to reach a wider audience and promote your content. When using hashtags, be sure to use relevant and popular keywords that will help people find your content.
Twitter lets you share what they call tweets, which are short text snippets of up to 240 characters. Think of it as headlines that let you keep up with current events without getting stuck in the detail. These headlines can link out to the content that provides the detail.
This is great for you because if you are already writing titles that attract people to your content, you can simply share tweet these titles on Twitter. his makes it an excellent platform to promote your content and drive organic site traffic.
When using Twitter (and all social media platforms, for that matter), it’s important to be thoughtful about the content you post. Make sure your tweets are respectful and relevant to the people you’re trying to reach.
The same tips that have been listed for Facebook apply to Twitter.
Instagram is a social media platform that allows users to share photos and videos with their followers. It’s one of the most popular social media platforms, and it’s a great way to connect with people who share an interest in what you share on the platform.
When using Instagram, post interesting and engaging content. Naturally, visual media works best for Instagram. Be sure to also interact with other users on the platform to help grow your audience.
The same tips that have been listed for Facebook apply to Instagram.
LinkedIn is a social media platform that allows users to connect with other professionals and businesses. It is especially useful to websites and businesses that are looking to increase their social media engagement or drive traffic to their site.
LinkedIn can be used to post updates about your business, share articles and blog posts, and even promote special offers.
Here are a few best practices for using LinkedIn:
- Use keywords in your profile so that people searching for your services can easily find you.
- Connect with other professionals and businesses in your industry.
- Join relevant groups and participate in discussions.
- Share helpful articles and blog posts that will be of interest to your connections.
- Regularly update your profile so that it reflects your latest work and accomplishments.
By following these tips, you can maximize your LinkedIn experience, build valuable connections, and drive more website traffic.
So to summarise, all of the social media platforms listed can be used to increase your website’s organic traffic. However, it is important to post relevant and engaging content that will capture the attention of your followers.
Additionally, you should interact with other users on each platform to help grow your audience. If you follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your organic site traffic.
19. Submit Your Site To Directories To Increase Organic Traffic
If you offer products or services locally, getting listed in online directories like Yelp, Foursquare, and Google My Business can help improve your visibility in search results.
Many of these directories rank in Google for local services, so adding your listing gives you an additional opportunity to be found in search engines like Google.
Getting listed in directories is free, so there is no good reason not to take advantage of them.
There are ways to improve your rankings within business directories, but that is beyond the scope of this article. However, if you just make sure your listing is accurate and includes photos and relevant information about your business, you will already significantly increase your chances of being found.
Submitting your site to directories is not only a great way to increase organic traffic but also an easy way to improve your local search engine optimization.
In Conclusion
By applying all or even some of these strategies discussed in this article, you will start driving more organic traffic to your website.
Just remember to focus on creating high-quality content that will appeal to your target audience so that your hard-earned traffic converts and keeps coming back for more.
Use Google Analytics or another web analytics tool to track the progress of your organic traffic over time. This will help you identify what’s working and what needs to be improved.
Increasing organic search traffic requires some effort, but the rewards are well worth it.
