The number one element that search engines look for when ranking your site is how well it functions for its advertised purpose. This means that the smoother your site operates, the more visitors it will receive. Things like elegant main navigation and descriptive captions for your images can introduce visitors to your message and assist them in finding what they came for. Invest time, money and energy into creating the most useful website possible for your budget.

It’s also important to ensure your site works just as well on mobile devices as it does on the desktop. Adjust your layout and the presentation of your content so that it is easily viewable on mobile. Search engines like Google have a ‘mobile-first’ policy that means they will evaluate your site on its mobile performance before taking its desktop functionality into account. This increasingly means that mobile sites are served up to visitors in the place of a desktop version when Google decides the mobile site better addresses the visitors’ needs. And it decreases the likelihood of desktop pages being inadvertently served to mobile devices where they can be more difficult to navigate and to locate what you were originally searching for.

Ensuring your site works well is an on-going project. Keep on top of site maintenance at all times. For example, it’s easy to assume all your links are working but the mercurial nature of the web means they need to be tested regularly to prevent dead-ends, navigation loops, and 404 errors.

2. CONTENT

Publishing and sharing content on your website is a proven way to increase traffic flow. The content you create should accurately reflect your brand message, so it needs to be of the highest quality. Content that is rushed or poorly thought-through (or worse, plagiarized from another site) could potentially have a detrimental effect on your attempts to attract regular visitors to your site. Whether your content is informative, entertaining or an engaging combination of the two, it should strive to answer two of the most common visitor questions: “What are they actually offering?” and “Why should I buy it from this site?”

Research your target audience and try to create content that is appropriate in tone, style and subject matter. If you can create content that is in-demand, on message, easy to navigate and helpful, internet users will naturally gravitate towards your website. 

3. SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is a digital marketer’s best friend. Any content you create should be shared widely on your social media accounts. Research the different platforms available and pick a handful of the most appropriate ones on which to establish a presence for your brand.

By building a following on social media, you can tap into a market of individuals and groups that will be naturally more inclined to visit your site. Share your content with the most relevant communities so that it reaches users who would be most interested in it. Social media is not naturally transaction-driven – it’s built to facilitate social conversations. So make the time to have your brand interact with social media users on their terms, referencing their posted wants/needs, and providing one-on-one solutions to their challenges. Building goodwill towards your brand is always worth the effort.

4. ANALYZE

The only way to know if your efforts are effective is to constantly analyze your website analytics. Use every tool at your disposal to monitor how your site is performing. Every time you make changes or post a new piece of content, take note of how those efforts have an impact on your traffic levels.

If you can ascertain which approaches work well and which don’t, you can then streamline your efforts to be more efficient and effective in the future. Only by constantly analyzing your site’s data will you be able to improve performance and deliberately refine your content to attract new visitors.

5. ADVERTISE

There are many ways to organically attract visitors to your site without paying any money, but you should also be open to more traditional forms of paid advertising. Google, the pay-per-click behemoth behind most internet advertising, is responsible for showing users both traditional text-based and multimedia ads across their various networks. There are as many Google Ads strategies as there are websites, but a simple approach of test trial and error is often enough. Advertising on social media, however, presents an opportunity for advertising your website where you can target the most relevant user demographics for your content. 

The most effective approach to attracting more users is often a combination of upgrading your content with free search engine optimization and supplementing that with paid advertising. Complement the work you’re doing in other areas with targeted paid campaigns to make the most of every opportunity. A great piece of content on your blog, for example, may just need a bit of paid promotion to reach its full potential.

Attracting more web traffic is often frustratingly challenging as your efforts can go unappreciated and your traffic figures might stagnate. However, there are many things you can do to improve the situation. By using these five tips to create a finely-tuned website that functions well and by posting useful, engaging content that appeals to new audiences, you can start attracting a steady stream of new users to your site. To improve conversion rates, make sure you’re giving them what they’re looking for when they get there. 

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The post How to Increase Traffic Flow to Your Website first appeared on STEP Software.

Your website can have between a dozen and hundreds (or even thousands) of links. There are inbound links in your written content that link to other parts of your site, and outbound links that show customers where you sourced your information. If these links are not working properly, then potential customers can end up aggravated – and this tends to mean that they will not become your customers.

While this step of the website spring cleaning process may be tedious, it’s incredibly important. Take a few hours out of your day to check that all links are routing your target audience appropriately. If they aren’t, remove them. If necessary, you can redirect traffic to a correctly working link, but this isn’t often required. 

2. ENSURE IMAGES ARE DISPLAYING

Like links, images can often fall into a state of disrepair. If sourced elsewhere on the web, the images may no longer be hosted. If they were uploaded into your website or blog host, then someone may have deleted them – either by accident or due to lack of available space.

Sometimes, images which aren’t displaying properly can simply be deleted and let it go at that. Other times it will be necessary to replace them with a functioning image – such as when the image is the only one attached to a piece of written content or is vital to your overall page purpose and design. 

3. SCAN CONTENT FOR RELEVANCY

As your company grows and develops, old content may become irrelevant to your overall brand or message. This mostly pertains to your archived blog posts, but it’s worth the time to glance over on-page content. 

If you find any now-irrelevant information, delete it. Not only will this declutter your website, but it will also make room for new content. It is up to you whether you’d like to save the old content to be reworked into newer posts, or delete them entirely. Many highly suggest saving and reworking old content so it remains relevant, as this can help create a content backlog that works as a buffer against your website’s blog ever going stale.

4. VERIFY CONTACT INFORMATION

This fourth step shouldn’t take much time, and chances are high you’ve kept this area up-to-date. Just briefly go over any contact information located on your website (including social media links and feeds) to ensure everything is current. 

While this step may not take long, it is of the utmost importance. If any of your company’s contact information is no longer up-to-date, it means that potential customers will be unable to get in touch – and that could spell disaster for your company’s bottom line. 

5. EVALUATE WEBSITE DESIGN AND USER EXPERIENCE

After you’ve done a thorough spring cleaning of your website’s information, take a moment to evaluate both its design and overall user experience. Ask yourself if all of your information is easy to find and if the website itself is easy to navigate.

Remember that you may be slightly biased since you’re so familiar with how your website works. For this step, it is strongly recommended to not only get a second pair of eyes, but also a third. Preferably, these would be users who are less familiar with the website. If two out of three people report that the website is user-friendly, it probably is. If two out of three people suggest the website is not, it may be time for an overhaul. 

If you take the time to follow the five website cleaning steps listed above, your website will be back in peak working condition. Only when a website is in well-working condition can it be the most effective lead generating tool for your business.

The post 5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Website first appeared on STEP Software.