Google utilizes proprietary algorithms to determine in what order websites are displayed in search results, and there are steps you can take to generate more website traffic. The goal is to show up in the top ten results for keyword phrases related to your book, blog posts, and all other content shared on your site.
By utilizing the following simple tactics, you can increase the number of website visitors your site receives. This can help inspire book sales, attract speaking opportunities, entice new clients, and much more.
Before you proceed and take any steps to increase your website traffic, be sure to setup traffic monitoring so that you can track your progress. Google Analytics is a free tool that sets a gold standard for monitoring website traffic.
Increase Website Traffic by Adding More Content to Your Website
- Implement a Blog
One of the best ways to increase website traffic is to add more content to your website on a regular basis. This is typically achieved by implementing a blog. I recommend all authors commit to creating at least one type of foundational content in blog form. This can be written blog posts, videos, or podcast episodes (or a combination of all three).
Statistically, the more often you add content to your blog, the more traffic your site will receive. The goal here is to start blogging on a regular basis, at least one or two times per week. While this may sound like a lot of effort, when you begin to see the results, you will understand why blogging should be a top priority.
Your blog is also at the heart of your social media strategy. Each new post gives you something to share via your social media channels and gives your followers a reason to visit your website. Each new post also gives Google another reason to locate and display your site content in search results.
For example, let’s say you’re an author of financial advice guides for teens. You write a blog post called “How teenagers can get started with investing.” Because you’ve been updating your blog regularly and implementing the other tactics recommended in this article, when users perform a search for “how to start investing for teens,” you have increased the likelihood that your content will rank highly in the search results. This brings users to your site who are seeking the information you are sharing. They then see that you write books and that can ultimately lead to more book sales.
If you take away only one detail from this article, adding a blog to your site is a key choice to help improve your website traffic.
- Understand Your Audience
A big missing component for a lot of bloggers is a failure to understand their target audience. Start by defining who your audience is and then what their interests, needs, and challenges are. Then you can write content that appeals to them directly. Without this focus, your blog will fail to gain readership because it won’t connect with your ideal readers.
- Survey Your Audience
You can learn a lot about your audience by conducting simple surveys with a tool like Survey Monkey. Ask what their greatest challenges are and find out what questions they have that you can answer with your content.
- Write Captivating Titles
The most important element of any blog post is a captivating title. The key is to hook potential readers so that they WANT to click through to keep reading. Study blog titles on popular blogs to see how they make them more enticing. Another place to seek inspiration is the cover stories on print magazines. Headlines like “How to Lose 20 Pounds in 20 Days” appeal to the target readers and make them want to buy the magazine. You can create similar results by crafting captivating titles. In fact, blog post titles are almost more important than the actual blog content.
- Feature Guest Contributors
You don’t have to generate all your blog content on your own. Invite industry experts and peers to contribute articles to your blog. Once a post is featured, ask them to share with their networks. To streamline the process, create submission guidelines on your site like the guest submission guidelines for NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com.
- Ask for Comments
One of the biggest complaints from bloggers is that it’s hard to generate comments. Most visitors won’t take time to leave a comment, but you can encourage them to do so by simply asking. At the bottom of each post, ask a question or simply invite readers to respond in the comment box below. It’s amazing how this simple request can yield results and improve visitor time on site and overall engagement.
- Promote in Your E-newsletter
Share your recent blog posts in your electronic newsletter by listing the title, first paragraph, and a link to keep reading. Your recipients will appreciate the content and will visit your site as a result.
- Develop Theme Days
Author Karl Palachuk features “SOP Fridays” on his blog at Small Biz Thoughts. His audience knows that each week Karl will share important Standard Operating Procedures for the IT industry (his target audience). This series has been so popular that Karl turned dozens of previous posts into a series of books.
- Feature Related Posts
At the end of each new blog post, it can be beneficial to refer readers to similar blog posts. You can summarize these yourself or WordPress users can install the Yet Another Related Posts plug-in, which will automatically serve up a list of related content—keeping readers engaged and on your site longer.
Search Engine Optimization Strategies for Author Websites
Blogging is a fantastic first step to improve the website traffic your site receives. Next, follow some simple guidelines to further improve your results.
- Use Responsive Website Design
In early 2016, Google announced that it would favor websites that are responsive. That means when you visit a site on a tablet or mobile device, the site content automatically adjusts to the screen viewing size. If your site has been live for many years and hasn’t been updated to a responsive design, it would be wise to get a new design implemented as soon as possible.
- Add Keywords to All Pages
Every page on your website should be optimized for the search engines by incorporating a single keyword phrase on each page. The keyword phrase tells Google what that page is about and aids Google in directing traffic to your site. Google looks for keyword concentration to understand what a page is about so it’s essential that you assign a single phrase for each and every web page.
For example, if you’re a professional speaker who covers internet security, the keyword phrase for your speaker page could be Keynote Speaker Internet Security. And once you understand the questions your audience may be searching for, you can write blog posts that provide the answers. For example, your blog posts could be like the following topics.
- Essential Steps to Protect Your Online Identity
- How to Backup Your Data on a Home Computer
- 5 Ways to Create Secure Passwords
With blog posts, the title should include the keyword phrase. Then you can take that phrase, or the entire blog post title, and add it to the relevant fields on the blog page.
A identify a keyword phrase should be incorporated it into the following places on each web page.
- Page title
- Page link/URL
- The header text on the page
- Within the body of the text on the page, repeated two or three times (this is what keyword concentration means)
- Tags/keywords data fields
- Conduct Keyword Research
When determining your keyword phrases, start by making a list of search terms you think your potential readers and site visitors would use to find your content. You can also take that effort a step further by conducting research. The free UberSuggest tool by Neil Patel is a personal favorite for keyword research: app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest/.
- Optimize Images
Each page on your site should have at least one photo or image, which can be a royalty-free photo from a site like pixabay, Canva, 123rf.com or istockphoto.com. Images not only add visual appeal, but they can assist in optimizing your web pages. Here’s how:
- Before uploading the image to your site, rename the image based on the keyword phrase for that page. Example: keynote-speaker-internet-security.jpg.
- When you add an image to a web page, add the keyword phrase for the page to the image’s “Alternative Text” and image title fields. Optionally, you can also add it to a caption. This assists in building your overall keyword concentration for the page.
- Add More Web Pages
Once you understand how keywords work, it can be beneficial to add additional website pages to take advantage of utilizing as many important keyword phrases as possible. Using the example above, a speaker could create additional pages for each topic covered. For example, you could create a page for each of the following key phrases:
- Keynote Speaker Internet Security
- Keynote Speaker Information Technology Trends
- Keynote Speaker Data Protection
Remember, each time you add new content, you give Google a new reason to rank your web pages in search results.
- Generate Inbound Links
One of the factors Google considers when determining how your website will rank is based on how many websites feature links to your site—these are called inbound links. Inbound links tell Google that your site is popular. A great way to start adding inbound links is by updating any online profiles that you have with professional associations you belong to, such as the free member profile on NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com, and other public profiles such as your user account on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
- Write Guest Blog Posts
For inbound links, Google gives greater priority to sites with higher authority, like education, government and media sites. Therefore, another powerful way to create more inbound links is by writing guest blog posts for popular media sites like Huffington Post. Also contribute to blogs and media sites that reach your target audience, such as independent magazines and trade association blogs. Alumni associations are also a useful target, especially if they have a “.edu” extension.
- Incorporate Outbound Links
Just as Google wants to see inbound links from other sites pointing to your website, you also get extra credit for having links on your site that lead to other sites. One easy way to do this is by including relevant links in any content that you generate. For example, if you post a blog on your site that references a current news article, include a link to that article in your post.
- Add a Resources Directory
Another way to add inbound and outbound links is by creating a page on your site specifically for recommending products and services that you. As a bonus, you could also include affiliate links and earn income from some of those recommendations. And another benefit here is that you could potentially swap links with some of the people and companies you recommend. Let them know about your page and ask if they can reciprocate.
- Generate Internal Links
Help Google “crawl” through your site by incorporating links within your content to other content on your site. For example, on a page that talks about services you offer, you could reference one or more past blog posts you’ve written or your resources directory. Internal links help visitors stay longer, which can also be beneficial for Google search results because this improves your bounce rate—the time spent on your site.
- Utilize Video
Sites with multi-media also rank higher with Google, which means adding video can be beneficial. You can record YouTube videos and embed them on your site. These can be short “talking head” videos where you give some sort of quick tip or advice. You could also record yourself giving a live presentation or you can use software like Camtasia to record webinars or computer demonstrations. Not only can video boost your site’s standing with Google, it can also help your site get discovered when users search YouTube for related topics. YouTube happens to be the second most searched site next to Google so it’s a great place to build a following for your content.
- XML Sitemap
A sitemap is a tool that tells Google about the structure of your website and where to find your content so that it can be properly indexed. You should submit an XML sitemap to Google, especially if you have a large site with a lot of content. WordPress users can accomplish this is with a free sitemap plugin. Non-Wordpress users can find detailed guidelines for submitting a sitemap here.
- Leverage Social Media
Here’s some good news about social media networks: You don’t have to use them all! Choose one or two networks, based on where your target audience spends time, and commit to using them well. Top choices include Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
The goal here is to share your foundational content (blog posts) with your social media audience. When social media users see a link to content that appeals to them, they click to read more. This is the primary way you can drive traffic to your website from social media. And keep in mind that many users treat social media sites like a search engine. For example, a Facebook user might search for “tips on setting a holiday table” and if you’ve recently posted an article about this topic, the user can discover it and be taken to your site to keep reading.
- Include Social Sharing Buttons
Make it easy for your readers to promote your blog posts by incorporating social media sharing buttons within your blog. There are a number of free social sharing plugins available for WordPress sites.
- Re-Share Past Content
Once you’ve been blogging for a while and have built up an archive of blog posts, you can continue to share them as long as they are still relevant. WordPress users can install the Revive Old Post plug-in, which will automatically share your past blog content to social media sites based on parameters you set.
Do More of What Works
Pay attention to the activity generated by each of your blog posts and the optimization strategies you’ve implemented. Note which posts get the most comments, retweets, etc., and which ones fall flat. Monitor your site traffic, keywords and most popular pages. Once you have some data, continue doing more of what works and watch your website traffic soar!
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