There’s no getting around it, consistently ranking well in search requires a dedicated organic search strategy. Ensuring the user finds your site and not your competitors when searching for relevant keywords or phrases is no easy task. It takes time and effort to plan, manage and execute an effective SEO strategy.
However, there are some simple fixes you can make today to ensure you are making the most of your content. Here are our seven quick fixes to help you boost organic traffic:
7 Quick Fixes to Boost Organic Traffic
1. Fix broken links
A quick look in Google Search Console will show you how many broken links you have. It might surprise you to know that all sites have them, even the big budget online superstars. That’s because broken links aren’t necessarily a big problem.
We’ve included broken links on our list because they are an easy thing to monitor and fix. As long as you don’t have too many broken links your site won’t be penalised by search engines. But be warned if you don’t check and fix those 404s you’ll soon start to feel the consequences.
2. Focus on long tail keywords
This is a great chance to tweak some of your underperforming content to focus on long tail keywords. It’s often the case that good content has slipped down the rankings due to short tail competition or poor internal linking. With a few small tweaks you can breathe new life into these pages by refocusing them for longer keyword phrases, which in turn will boost organic traffic.
Also long tail keywords tend to have a longer life cycle. Due to reduced competition, well performing long tail content can maintain consistent levels of organic search traffic with very little maintenance required.
3. Optimise meta titles/descriptions
Your meta titles and page descriptions should include keywords relevant to the content of your page. These tags tell search engines what your page is about. You should consider the length and the order of the characters/words included in each of the meta tags. Note that the search engine robots read from left to right and those words that come first are more important than those that come towards the end of the page.
4. Refocus internal links
Internal links are your way of showing search engines which pages are important on your site and which keywords they are important for. Don’t forget, the link text is just as important as the link so be sure to refocus internal links with relevant keywords for the content they point to.
Refocusing internal links can give a real boost to under performing pages. Consider spending a few hours identifying keyword opportunities and adjusting your internal links to show search engines which of your pages are important for specific keywords.
5. SEO friendly URLs
This one can take some setting up but is well worth it. SEO friendly URLs are simple meaningful links. They make life easy for search engines and in turn search engines reward your site for it.
Consider setting up a dynamic URL generator which simply takes your domain name and page title to make your SEO friendly URL. Then rest easy knowing any new content will have a Google-friendly URL automatically generated.
6. Image file names and alt tags
Check your images. You are looking for any file names or alt tags that aren’t relevant to the page content. You don’t need to go crazy repeating your keywords here, just make sure your images have relevant titles to the page. Google uses the alt tag and file name to determine what the image is about so it makes sense to keep this consistent with your page content.
7. Social share options
Adding social share buttons to all content pages allows users to easily share your content, thus increasing its reach. Whilst that alone won’t directly impact your page rankings, more eyeballs on site and backlinks from social media sites means greater authority and that will impact your page rankings. So spend a few minutes adding a simple social share widget to all content and landing pages.
That’s all folks. These fixes are intended as a checklist to make sure you are not missing out on organic traffic. Each of these elements has an impact on how search engines rank your site but ultimately, the only way to substantially increase organic traffic is to consistently produce useful reliable content for your audience.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.