Your website is your online calling card. Sure, people still use business cards, but if a company doesn’t have a website, it is missing out on a valuable resource to produce interest and revenue. However, just having a website is not enough. Numerous companies around the globe have websites that are merely holding a spot on the Web. This may be unintentional in that the company truly thinks they are doing all the right things. Or perhaps, it is intentional because the company has a site that is a slow work in progress.
If you feel like your website falls into the first category, it is wise to step back and determine why your website is not getting the traffic you expected or would like to see. Quite often, you need to make changes so that people are not just finding your website but are engaging and purchasing from it as well.
However, before addressing why your site may not be getting the attention you wanted, consider this:
Your website may be website is attracting the wrong audience. These people are not likely to make any type of purchase due to finding your site by using search terms that are not the most effective for your business and thus attract the wrong demographic or interest group. This “confusion of search terms,” whether due to your choice or theirs, can be corrected-at least on your side- by improving your site’s web content and structure.
Once this issue is addressed, it is time to improve your website and make it more inviting.
7 Reasons Why People Aren’t Finding Your Website:
Simply stated, your website needs to be more than a placeholder if you want it to rank in search engine results.
- Your website is not mobile-friendly. Since 2016 the number of mobile users has increased, and with it, there has been a significant increase in how many people are surfing the web via a mobile device. If your website is still designed with a desktop in mind, then you are losing customers without even being found. Google’s search engine algorithms bypass websites that are not mobile-friendly.
- Your website doesn’t answer their questions. Your website needs to answer the questions guests are asking, not just focus on how wonderful your company is. For instance, if you are a construction company, people want to know what type of home you can build, not that you have built 10,000 homes and have four crews. (Yes, those other facts are important, but they aren’t the focus of your site.) A simple approach is to ensure that 80% of your content is focused outward and 20% inward.
- Your website is appealing to the wrong crowd. Derek Halpern of Social Triggers stated in an article with Entrepreneur that when designing your website, it needs to connect with people who are oblivious, afflicted, and informed. Oblivious guests are unaware they have a problem to correct; the afflicted are the guests who know there is a problem and are looking for a solution, and the informed are those who like and trust you. Websites not getting visited typically only address one of these areas. Your website needs to appeal to all three groups to be successful and site visits.
- Your SEO needs help! If your website isn’t employing as many SEO boosting tools as is reasonable, or you are using your chosen keywords without a plan for success, then ranking in SERP is unlikely. While many great SEO tools are available, one of the favorites is Yoast SEO. Having Yoast on your website lets you know when the content you add to your site meets the criteria needed for ranking well in search results. If you want something different, another great option is SEMrush.
- You don’t have any backlinks. Perhaps one of the best actions you can take to get found is by backlinking with other websites. You can build backlinks by commenting on other sites’ blogs and including a link to your own, guest post on another site that will allow a link to your site, or post press releases which contain a link back to your website. Over time, if you develop good content on your website, you should accumulate backlinks when people reference your posts on their blogs or news posts. Remember to keep your content relevant to your prospects and valuable enough that someone would want to share or reference it on their posts.
- Posting and not promoting. You can write a blog post every day of the week, create a graphic a month, and do a 30-minute video every other month. Still, if you are not promoting these activities on social media or by using a marketing influencer, you will not increase website visibility or traffic. So how much promotion should you do? The 80/20 rule strikes again, but in this case, it needs to be 80% on promotion and 20% on creation.
Your website loads slowly. Most of us are not patient people. (We know you are surprised by that!) However, search engines aren’t very patient either. If your site and page speeds are too slow, it will be crawled by fewer search engine spiders and thus get overlooked in search results. If you don’t know how fast your site is loading, try testing with a free loading speed tool.
Your website loads slowly. Most of us are not patient people. (We know you are surprised by that!) However, search engines aren’t very patient either. If your site and page speeds are too slow, it will be crawled by fewer search engine spiders and thus get overlooked in search results. If you don’t know how fast your site is loading, try testing with a If you are going to have a company website, then you want it to be found and utilized. As you review the potential reason for an unvisited website, look for ways to make your site better and more search engine friendly. Whether by building backlinks, updating your SEO, or redefining your audience, the changes are worth making.
Want to improve your website but still aren’t sure where to begin? Contact the website development and design team at Page Progressive. We love to hear from you.