Last updated on February 22nd, 2022 at 08:00 pm
Are you frustrated by the low number of visitors that you are getting to your website?
Are your web pages still stubbornly refusing to appear on the search engine results pages (SERPs)?
Well, it could be that, with only a few small tweaks to your website, you could change your fortunes for the better.
Here are eight common reasons why sites fail to attract visitors.
1. You Are Targeting the Wrong Keywords
If you are competing against well-established websites in your niche, then you are going to struggle for visitors if you target high-competition keywords.
Other sites will have already targeted general keywords that have high search volumes.
So, consider changing your keywords to more specific terms that will be searched for less frequently.
If you were a Ford car dealership in Bangor, Maine, for example, then “Ford dealership,” would be an almost impossible keyword to get ranked highly. “Ford Showroom Bangor Maine,” though, would likely bring you more success.
2. You Are Not Leveraging Social Media
Google and the other search engines are now only one part of the website traffic equation.
Many people now search for what they are looking for on social media more often than they do on Google.
If you want to generate organic traffic to your site, you need to be publishing your content on social media.
It would also help if you are active on social media to generate more followers and subscribers.
3. Your Content is Not Optimized for Search Engines
There is a wide range of search engine optimization (SEO) factors that you will need to get right if you want to get your content on the first page of Google.
Missing one single SEO trick could relegate your content to a lower placing on the search engine results pages.
The best way to be sure that you cover all the SEO best practices is to install an SEO plugin like Yoast. An SEO plugin will highlight any SEO aspects of your pages that you need to improve.
4. You Do Not Have Enough Backlinks
Backlinks are a crucial factor in your website ranking on search engines.
But, for backlinks to be of any use, they must come from high-quality, trusted sources.
There are a variety of ways that you gain backlinks for your site.
Guest posts, blog commenting, and content are only three of the ways that can build more backlinks to your site.
Whichever of the various methods you use to get more links to your site, an ongoing backlink building campaign will be crucial to the success of your website.
5. Your Website is Too Slow
If your website is slow to load, then that will affect your rankings, and users will not return to your site.
You can check the speed of your website on Google’s website speed insights page.
If your site is taking too long to load, try removing unnecessary plugins, optimizing images, and enabling caching on your site.
The cause of a slow website may also be your hosting provider, so you may need to change the hosting company if the performance of your site does not improve.
6. Your Headlines Are Not Compelling
Your headlines are what will attract visitors to your site.
That said, if the titles of your blog posts and web pages are not compelling, people will click on more interesting-looking posts.
Each headline should tell a potential visitor what the page is about and give the user a reason to visit that page.
Remember, your headlines are all that someone searching on a search will see when your page is listed in the SERPs. So, you must make your headlines as enticing as possible.
7. Your Website is Poorly Designed
If your website is not visually appealing and easy to navigate, then you are not going to get a lot of return visitors.
Some of the user experience factors can also affect your Google ranking.
And remember, your site must look good on all types of devices, not just on desktop computers.
Even if your content is top-quality and your offer is exceptional, if the user experience is not right, you will miss out on a lot of traffic.
8. Your Content is not Up to Scratch
Finally, if your content is not up to scratch, the few users who do visit your website will simply bounce right back out again.
Google can recognize poor-quality content, so low-quality content will lower your search engine ranking as well.
Whether you have a blog or an e-commerce site, you must have well-written, informative content that people will want to read.
It is no longer sufficient to have keyword-stuffed content and a bundle of paid-for backlinks to get a site ranked.
You need genuine content that serves an actual purpose and provides value to readers.
Conclusion
The crucial point to take away from the above points is that you must build a website for the users, not solely for the search engines.
If you get that right, and you follow the fundamental SEO best practices, then visitors will come.
If you want to get faster results, you can take shortcuts to get more traffic.
You could, for example, pay for traffic and buy backlinks.
However, when you take shortcuts, the benefits will be short-lived too.
