How to organically increase your traffic instead of wasting money on “SEO”

28 Feb 2022, by Slade Baylis

Having a website that no one visits is almost like Schrödinger's cat; it’s almost like it might as well both exist and not exist at the same time! For those who are using a website as the online front for their business, getting people to visit them is just about the most important aspect to improve. This is even more true for those people who primarily rely on their website for their livelihood. It should come as no surprise then that improving the ranking of websites has emerged as business model, and a lot of players are in that market and are promising the world. That market is all to do with SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimisation.

What is “Search Engine Optimisation”?

The main goal of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), as the name suggests, is to try and “optimise” a website so that popular search engines will list the website closer to the top of their list of results when searching for particular search terms. Most of the time this refers to the results that Google shows (as it’s the most commonly used search engine), though it does also encompass other search engines, such as Bing or Yahoo.

There are many different approaches to try and improve your ranking within these search engines, but all of them centre around trying to change the content on your website, so that your website is seen as more relevant to their users. This increase of relevance to their user-base for particular search terms then results in your website being ranked higher and displayed closer to the top of the list of results. 

The problems of trying to “optimise” your ranking

In the early days of search engines their algorithms were much more simplistic. For example, if they detected a website mentioned a certain word a lot, that would help with that website ranking for that particular word. Within websites there are even ways to let a search engine know what each page is about and provide a list of information for each page, such as a description or page title via things called “meta tags”. Early on, these meta tags were highly influential with regards to how you ranked for the keywords mentioned within them. 

However, before long, nefarious actors tried to “game the system” and tried to exploit these metrics. This ranged from: putting white text on a white background that mentioned irrelevant keywords that a person wouldn’t see but the search engine would; flooding the meta tags with the same sort of spam; or even spamming the comment sections of other website around the web with links back to the website they were trying to boost the ranking of. These sorts of tactics would often be employed by dishonest SEO agencies, most of the time without their clients knowing that these sorts of methods were being used. 

The problem? This meant that search engine providers needed to create more sophisticated algorithms to determine which sites were genuinely the best results to return. They needed those algorithms to also be able to detect attempts to trick them into listing results higher in their search results, so as to then penalise them. This was also where another trend began, which was being purposefully vague and obtuse with what aspects are considered. They did this so that they could stop people trying to “game the system” to force unrelated websites to the top of their results. 

What this means for website owners is that due to the purposeful opaqueness of the algorithm, there isn’t any set list of strictly defined tasks that you can take to guarantee an increase in your search result position. Rather, there is only a loose set of rules regarding best practices you should take as a website owner. Unfortunately, in order to try and convince people to do business with them, far too many SEO providers will promise the world and then charge you an arm and a leg in the attempt to get there.

The real solution – Accurate and relevant content for your audience

Another large problem exists in the realm of SEO. When the results of your work are largely controlled by the hands of a purposefully vague algorithm, it can be difficult to know what changes can result in an improvement in your ranking. In light of this, there is only really one way to legitimately increase the ranking of your website. It’s something that most SEO agencies won’t tell you as it largely removes your need for their services, but the actual best way to improve your ranking is simply to improve your content.

Improving your content can be rather vague though, so what does it actually mean? It means having useful information or products/services that cause people to come back to your site regularly. It also means, rather than just mentioning words for the sake of increasing your ranking, actually mentioning those keywords within your content in useful ways. 

In short, there isn’t a way to trick search engines into ranking your website higher. Instead of trying to find a quick and easy path using SEO, it’s much better to instead lean into what they are already trying to find, which is relevant and quality information and services. Improving the quality of your website for the people looking for it will almost by definition increase the ranking of your website. As visitors come through to your website, search engines will then notice that they spend longer on your website when compared to your competitors. That can be a signal to them that your website has valuable information and should be recommended to their users.

Not only is this what Google is trying to tune their algorithms to find, but it will also help with keeping people on your website once they visit it because it’s exactly what they were looking for.

Accuracy over time – Improving your ranking by frequently updating your website

There is a common term called the “half-life of facts” which is defined as the amount of time that has to elapse before half the knowledge of a particular field is superseded or shown to be false. Due to this, it’s generally seen that more up to date information could be more accurate than older information. This is just as true when it comes to how Google and other search engines rank the websites on the internet.

Although it does require a bigger commitment, rather than treating your website as a “set it and forget it” type task, it’s recommended to treat it as a constantly evolving part of your business. Keeping your website’s content up-to-date (or potentially even having a section of your website that updates frequently, such as a blog) can show search engines that your website is being actively maintained. This can help demonstrate that the information within it is potentially more accurate and up-to-date than other alternative websites that have instead been static over long periods of time. 

Useability and intuitiveness – How a well-made website can improve your results

Not only can the quality of the information on your website affect your search result ranking, but so too can its performance and useability. Nowadays, search engines track and analyse how people interact and respond to your website, and they also use that data to inform their ranking systems. If your website is built well, is intuitive to use, and makes it easy for visitors to make a purchase, all of that leads to the increased likelihood of a conversion. 

Search engines notice if users end up buying products or services from you online at higher rates of conversion than to your competition, or if they end up leaving positive reviews of their experience using your website. That is likely to be factored into their algorithms and help with increasing your standing. However, it should be noted that the inverse is also true. If customers don’t spend as long on your website as your competition or they leave negative reviews, this is likely to count as a black mark against your website’s search engine ranking.

Another way to boost traffic – Online marketing rather than SEO

Although it’s a phrase that has obviously caught on in the public lexicon, instead of focusing on SEO to try and increase the traffic to your website, it’s much better to focus on your marketing and branding. Instead of trying to push your website up the Google search results by a few positions and spend thousands of dollars doing so, this money should be put towards a marketing or advertising campaign that will often deliver better results.

By looking at building your branding through marketing efforts instead, you get to define how your business is perceived by the public and build your brand’s image. As more people get to know about your brand, traffic to your website will organically increase. As a flow-on effect, the increased level of traffic will likely mean that search engines like Google will notice and start preferencing your website over other businesses without the same level of brand awareness.

As another benefit, unlike with a purely SEO approach, when people finally reach your website due to a marketing campaign they are more likely to result in a conversion due to that prior understanding of who you are and what you do. This level of trust and familiarity isn’t there when someone visits your website purely because you were higher in the search results.

Summary – Play the game properly, rather than trying to cheat it

For any business that highly relies on online traffic for their income, your position in the results when people search for keywords related to your business can be extremely important. However, it’s become highly lucrative for “SEO Agencies” to promise the world in terms of results, without necessarily having the ability to guarantee a return on investment. That’s not even mentioning the amount of suspect agencies out there still employing dubious tactics to try and trick search engines, which will likely even damage your ranking once those search engines discover them.

Instead of trying to artificially boost your ranking, a much more lucrative and beneficial approach is to:

• Look at improving the content throughout your website;
• Mention and provide useful information on the keywords that you would like to rank highly on;
• Try and improve the user experience on your website to improve conversion and increase the amount of time visitors stay on your website;
• Regularly update your website’s information content to make sure it’s up-to-date;
• Have a section on your website that is frequently updated and provides useful information for your visitors such as a blog;
• Encourage your clients to leave genuine reviews of your business with independent bodies, such as Google Reviews or Trustpilot; and
• Rather than wasting money trying to directly influence your search engine ranking, use that same funding to instead focus on marketing your business and letting people know your unique value proposition.

Through approaches like the ones listed above, people will naturally want to know more about your business and will in turn spend more time visiting and reading the content on your website. Search engines are in the business of finding the content that their users want to see – due to that, by making your content more appealing to your visitors, you may find the search engine algorithms start working in your favour!

Have any questions about how to improve your particular website?

We can help point you in the right direction! Feel free to reach out to us on 1300 769 972 (Option 1) or send us an email at sales@micron21.com