Need to get more website traffic

[JohnW]

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ckgdesign, post: 238221, member: 59271 wrote:

SEO is one thing I’ve tried to work pretty hard on. I’m by no means an expert, but I’m working on it slowly but surely. I’m a fan of getting local clients (I want them), which is why I’ve setup that .com.au page. You’re right though, it’s in very little title tags and across the site as a whole.

Ugh, it’s kinda frustrating. I feel like I need to get more referral links from other sites too. I’ve submitted my website to a few portfolio showcase sites to try and help with that.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions so far. I think the main thing I have to work on is it’s speed.
Hi Chris,
You have already diagnosed your site’s primary problem. Dave and Byron re-confirmed it for you. If you think you are implementing effective SEO, I can’t see it. I hope the following helps you back on the right path.

SEO is primarily about words on web pages. SEs try to rank the pages that best answer searcher’s questions at the top of the results list.

There is nothing you can do with HTML code or external links to boost a page into a top 10 ranking if it contains no relevant info. Eg. Your Logo Design page’s total copy is:

“Logo Design
A company logo is a critical visual to your company’s brand. Along with the company name, a logo is often considered the most memorable aspect of your company. Therefore, the right message needs to be conveyed. I design logos that fit your target demographic and vision which underline your brands identity.

Need a new company logo? A better brand image?”

If you are targeting the search phrase “logo design” you need to outrank 127 million pages. No chance with your 62 word page!

SEO Step 1: Research and Planning

Establish these parameters:

• Define the services YOU want to promote
• Define the different types of clients YOU want to attract
• Define the info CLIENTS will want in the sequence THEY need
• Answer the questions CLIENTS will pose in search engines
• Ask THEM to contact you as relevant on every site page.

Your best research tool to identify how clients search is Google’s predictive search function. You will find there are several prominant methods in your market:

• By business category – Eg. graphic design, graphic designer, graphic design services, etc.
• By type of service – Eg. Logo design, print design, POS design, web design, e-commerce design, email design, etc.
• By the client’s industry – Eg. restaurant logo design, real estate logo design, B2B graphic designer, consumer packaging designer, etc.
• LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!

Your best online leads will be from people who add “MELBOURNE” to every single one of the hundreds/thousands of search queries you may want to target!

Do NOT try to target everyone. You can’t target everyone’s search queries, you can’t give everyone the specific services they need and you certainly don’t have enough hands and time in your day to supply your services to everyone.

The better you define YOUR preferred customer and provide THEM with the very specific info that is relevant to THEIR needs, the more web enquiries you will receive.

SEO Step 2: Client’s Info Needs Sequence

It is impossible to create a single page that contains relevant info for all the different client types and service type searchers therefore you will want to create different web pages on which they will land on your site. Then you need to clearly show them where they can find more detailed info in the sequence they are likely to need it.

(NB: Your Home page is relatively unimportant for targeting search engine referrals. If more than 25% of new visitors land on it, you probably have an SEO problem.)

I try to supply the basic relevant info to new clients on as few as three web pages.

Fortunately, you should find that most site visitors have similar info topic needs which will likely follow in the same sequence.

There is certain info that visitors will want to see first and on top of every one of your web pages:

• What you do
• Where you are
• Who you are
• How to find info on your site
• Where they are on your site
• How to contact you (For repeat visitors)
• A reason to read further

The visitor should then go through an info sequence like this:

• Do you provide the service they want?
• Are you experienced in their industry?
• Are you any good? (And, “how do I evaluate designers?)
• What does the client have to do?
• Does the client want to do business with you?
• Why should the client contact you?
• How does the client contact you?

SEO Step 3: Define your site structure

Your research should confirm you need a site structure like this:

Home
Services – Multiple pages that address your individual services linking them when relevant
Clients – Multiple pages that address the needs of the various industry client types you want to target.
Portfolio – Multiple pages for different types of design work – sorted by relevant categories/industry types. Linked to pages that describe example details.
About Us
Contact Us
Resources (optional) – A useful service whose content needs to be cross-linked with Services and Clients pages, as relevant.

A successful client visit pathway might be:

Landing page – Either a Client type or Service type page
To: Service detail pages or Client type page
To: Portfolio pages relevant to service needed
To: About Us
To: Contact – phone or email

You are talking to busy business owners. They want to find answers as quickly as possible. Give them that and you will get more enquiries than if you try to make them explore your site. They won’t.

SEO Step 4: Add your on-page SEO code

This includes your page titles, meta content descriptions, image alt tags, page URLs, breadcrumbs, etc.

You can’t start to add these elements until you have sorted out all the previous factors.

SEO Step 5: Monitor results

If you implement all the foregoing well, you should start getting lots of site traffic and enquiries.

Your site traffic reports will tell you where there may be problems that need more work.

SEO Step 6: Don’t worry about external links

Get this right and in your market you should not need to worry about the time consuming activity of learning what are valuable external links and wasting time trying to procure them.

I would be surprised if it is worth spending much time on social media. That is not where you would expect many potential clients to go to find a business service. I checked a few of your competitors and they are getting no significant respone from it.

I hope this helps put you on the right SEO pathway. Good luck!
Regs,
JohnW

[Natalie Khoo]

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Hi Chris! Your website takes way too long to load, and when it does, I feel quite overwhelmed by the imagery and choice there is perusing your portfolio etc. How about simplifying your website so that your style shows in the design but you don’t necessarily showcase as much stuff? That’s what Instagram is for. Think of your website as a CV – the ultimate goal is to get an interview (client meeting) not win the job by bombarding the customer straight away. Keep it simple.

On a more technical note, although your website is responsive, it doesn’t adhere to UX and accessibility best practice (i.e. H tags in order, useful metadata, alt text). Those factors influence SEO and this could be one of the reasons you’re not ranking as well as you’d like.

[roxanne40]

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Natalie- I notice that you website loads really really quick and I was really impressed- who provides you with your hosting?

[Natalie Khoo]

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Hi Roxanne40. The host I use is Serversaurus, a small company based in North Melbourne. I highly recommend them.

Cheers, Natalie

[Concept]

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Everyone is focussed on SEO. Which is great and you should definitely make sure your site is friendly for search engines. However, if you want serious traffic, unless you are a pro at SEO, it will take a while.

However, if you want to get people to your site fast, consider traffic leaking.

Traffic leaking is essentially finding out where your target market is, going there and providing huge value to customers. Traffic leaking is often thought of as spamming. It’s not. If it does not provide value, then don’t do it.

Here’s a guide: http://www.trafficleaks.com/

Find out where your target market it. Get involved with forums. Comment and add huge value to posts on popular blogs. Answer niche specific questions on quora. Get involved on reddit threads.

Most of these allow you to include a link back to your website in your signature or profile. If you provide value, people will want to find out more about you, and BAM, they go to your website.

Hell, if you have just written an awesome blog post and it will provide awesome highly relevant value then include the link.

If it is just a link for links sake, that’s spamming. Dont do that.

Doing things this way could mean you can get serious traffic in weeks, not months or even years. If you are already a ninja and providing value, you could get traffic in days!

And the other benefit is, it will slowly trickle and positively effect your rankings as well

[mypresences]

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Hi chris .. portfolio site looks great and I see you have a presence on some of the graphic design specific sites like dribble and behance.

One thing you might want to do is look at building your overall presence and reputation online. Make sure you are listed where you should be and where your customers would look for you and make sure what they find is appealing and would make them take the next step to click through to your website or call.

Here is a list of over 150 websites relevant to your business:
https://www.mypresences.com/services/graphic-designer/australia/

Check you are listed on some of the better ones and make sure your listings are accurate, consistent and complete to help you rank better on local search.

Also … check for any ratings and reviews .. these are becoming more important to your business and getting a potential customer to investigate further.

All the best,
Paul.

[Zarabasiri]

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Do some keyword research in your niche,
Put the most searched keywords wisely on your page title, meta description, URL,
Share your blog posts in your social media accounts, facebook, twitter, youtube, etc, .. link back to your site.

ckgdesign, post: 210028, member: 59271 wrote:

Hey all,

I feel like I need to get significantly more traffic to my website. I think I have a good quality of work, a quality website which functions as I want it to, etc.

However, I don’t get anywhere near as much traffic as I would like to. Like most people on here, I don’t want to be chasing down work, life would be easier if they went to my website, filled out the contact form, and it went from there.

A few things I’m considering;
– Adwords, which I don’t use.
– More Facebook marketing, which I don’t find hugely successful.
– Added a blog to my website. Simple, generic hints and tips which I think would benefit the SEO of my website.

My problem is that I haven’t really focused in on a certain type of client. I don’t really push local business, I usually try and say that I’m happy to work for clients no matter where they’re based.

Like I mentioned, I like the way my website looks and feels, but I’m thinking that I might need some sort of additional page, probably working as the home page which is a bit more SEO friendly. Or, alternatively, making another website which pushes SEO a lot more.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

Website should be in my signature, but it’s http://ckgd.net/

[heftzwecke]

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There is some cool graphic in your website. But there is little about you as a person. You should have a really great photo of you, your team (if you have that), maybe your office.
All in all I find the text too lengthy and I would cut them down by half. You sell graphic and not texts anyway. Could you consider bringing up some price examles? Or packages this + this = the other for xxx? Otherwise I would either go local or target a group you have a natural affinity to. Like you like motorbikes then you target motorbike shops or so.

[Kosta_Kondratenko]

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ckgdesign, post: 210028, member: 59271 wrote:

Hey all,

I feel like I need to get significantly more traffic to my website. I think I have a good quality of work, a quality website which functions as I want it to, etc.

However, I don’t get anywhere near as much traffic as I would like to. Like most people on here, I don’t want to be chasing down work, life would be easier if they went to my website, filled out the contact form, and it went from there.

A few things I’m considering;
– Adwords, which I don’t use.
– More Facebook marketing, which I don’t find hugely successful.
– Added a blog to my website. Simple, generic hints and tips which I think would benefit the SEO of my website.

My problem is that I haven’t really focused in on a certain type of client. I don’t really push local business, I usually try and say that I’m happy to work for clients no matter where they’re based.

Like I mentioned, I like the way my website looks and feels, but I’m thinking that I might need some sort of additional page, probably working as the home page which is a bit more SEO friendly. Or, alternatively, making another website which pushes SEO a lot more.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

Website should be in my signature, but it’s http://ckgd.net/

Your site looks really good and your designs are top notch. However to be fair if someone were to come to your website they would see it as “ok, that’s good designs but so are heaps of design related stuff on 99 Designs or other online marketplaces.” Just out of curiosity what do you use as your landing page?

If you are advertising you should have an offer to get someone to take action and go into your funnel – why not a free letterhead design or something crazy like that? It’ll only take you 15 minutes to do and can lead to a ton of work – you can even outsource it to Fiverr if you don’t want to do it yourself.

If your whole thing is “Hey I’m a designer get in contact with me” – it’s not exactly the most enticing offer esp. for people who are online and know where to get other designers too (not having a go at you – just saying have an offer).

[Cedric Markwatson]

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You should focus more on local SEO to get more local visitors plus if possible try to add more content to your website. The content should cater to local audiences of your business.

[Kokoronkwo]

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I’m just re-reading Jim Cockrums book “101 Free Marketing” which is has an astounding about of quality info about marketing your website & online reputation… you will definitely find some ideas there.

[christianlebe]

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Hi Chris,

Great website – love it from design perspective.
However, its not that selling from buyer’s perspective. I checked it out, looks cool, so what?

I agree with Kosta. You should add some values to your visitors. One idea is create a generic logo or template. Give it out for free and get their email as an exchange.
Promote that on facebook. I reckon you’ll get some tractions.

The next question is how can you convert that freeloaders into paying customer.

[Concept]

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[USER=59271]@ckgdesign[/USER] How’s this going mate? What have you tried? What’s worked/not worked.

Love to get an update on this.

[Author]

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