Free boost in organic traffic? Yes please!
I’m constantly researching ways to increase traffic to my clients’ sites. However, I don’t want traffic that is just going to increase my bounce rate, I want legitimate clicks that are targeted to the specific audience that will result in a conversion.
So you’re probably wondering what this has to do with how to drive traffic without paying for it. So I’ll explain it as best I can. Your website is (or should be) available 24×7, it’s constantly providing information to users. The thing is, you don’t always know what part of the sales cycle those users are in. Your job is to provide the information they need for every part of the sales cycle. So can you do that best?
It’s simple really, provide your site/content/information in as many formats as you can. Many people who are in the research stage of the sales process are browsing from a mobile device. To makes sure your site is getting a chance at that traffic you must be leveraging AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). It’s the only way your site will effectively compete on a mobile device. Additionally, you should have a Google sitemap, product feed and your site should also be leveraging Micro-Data.
After adding AMP pages to a customer’s eCommerce website, we experienced a 25% lift in traffic. Additionally, it appears to have also boosted clicks from YouTube and other surfaces across google. Not to mention an increase in Featured Snippets showing up on the SERP which in turn, drove more free website traffic.
At this point, these are the minimum things every website should be doing to effectively drive traffic to your site. They’re all free (except for product feeds now) but those are still relatively low-cost clicks.
That’s all I’ve got for now, if you can think of other ways to leverage free traffic, drop it in the comments below. Or if you need help implementing any of these. Let me know. If you want to know more… ask, I’ll gladly add more info if it’s needed.
Web Developer
eCommerce Usability Optimization Expert
PNW Native, Outdoor Enthusiast and Overlander.