Organic traffic is the holy grail of SEO. It’s a huge part of the purpose behind the role and failure to achieve it due to common mistakes is why many businesses struggle. Are you aware of these simple traps that catch most SEO novices unaware, and what can you do about them?

Below, we break down these pitfalls one by one and show you how to avoid them, boosting your site’s visibility and attracting more visitors. With this guide on your site, you can ensure that you have the best chance of getting more eyeballs on your product or service. 

So, read on to learn how to get organic traffic to your website. Discover practical, no-nonsense advice, and get your site ranking higher.

What Is Organic Traffic and Why Is it So Important?

People finding your site without seeing an advertisement (“organic traffic”) plays a huge role in your visibility. It is a display of how many people come to you, instead of you going to them, and is an indicator of how engaging your online presence is.

Over time, organic traffic can start to snowball. Appearing high in search engines boosts the number of people coming to your site. Yet, at the same time, the more people visiting you can also determine your visibility in a search engine.

Unlike paid ads, though, organic traffic does not need you to continue investing money directly into it. While continuing to make up-to-date and relevant content can help you, once you are established you may be able to slow down your efforts. You can even often go hands-off for short periods and allow your existing outreach to keep you going.

How to Get Organic Traffic to Your Website

When you are starting to bring in organic traffic, you want to focus on smart and strategic actions. Throwing money at the problem is unlikely to help. For example, creating dozens of blog posts in a brief period might be good when you first create a site, but it’s unsustainable in the long-term.

You want to:

• Leverage tools and resources to simplify the process of SEO
• Prioritize the most impactful changes
• Be consistent in your output
• Focus on what you can do effectively

And remember the following rules if you want to know how to increase website traffic organically:

1. Don’t Neglect Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you understand what your audience is searching for when they look for services or products like yours. There are a few ways you can then leverage this, such as:

• Updating your website with strong keywords with little competition
• Looking for long-tail keywords with high conversion rates
• Checking what your competition is ranking for and aiming to beat them
• Finding the most popular terms related to your products

Each of these allows you to predict what is most likely to bring more people into your engagement funnel.

2. Don’t Forget On-Page SEO

Make sure to optimize anything on your site that may need tags to ensure they are relevant and keyword-rich. For example:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Headers
• Image alt text

You do not need to use the same keyword on these, though. By using synonyms, your content will often appear more natural. This ensures a search engine is less likely to believe you are trying to manipulate numbers.

Make sure your site is also well-structured. Use proper HTML tags that describe the content clearly, and make use of internal and external links to create a natural flow.

If you ensure your site has a better user experience, such as by making your space easier to navigate, people will be less likely to bounce away. You can then encourage them to convert into paying users much easier.

3. Don’t Churn Out Poor-Quality Content

It can be very tempting to just make as much content as possible to try and “game” a search engine algorithm. This can be harmful, though, if it means potential customers see what you have created and are turned away.

Instead, invest time into researching what would be valuable and accurate content for your customers. Then, write compelling and engaging content that brings people in and hooks them.

At the same time, over time you will find your style shifts. Because of this, make sure you go back to old content and refresh it. This allows you to reuse your old work to present you as relevant to search engines.

4. Don’t Leave Mobile Optimization for Later

Over half of all users these days use mobile to access the web rather than a desktop or laptop. Despite this, several sites are still not ready for the style of interaction that comes from a handheld device.

Use responsive design, a method of adjusting your site based on the device being used, to ensure you always offer the best experience. Then, test your site on various devices to ensure it is always compatible. For example:

• Ensure your site’s images and videos load fast on mobile
• Make sure the site is easy to navigate on mobile
• Check the layout is clear across all experiences
• Make sure you can still read all the text on smaller screens

Ensuring the handheld user experience can also boost your reputation if people feel like it is easy to engage with you.

5. Don’t Ignore Page Load Speed

Your site’s page load speed can impact both the experience of the user and your SEO rankings. If a search engine such as Google sees that your site takes a long time to load, it may deprioritize you in its list.

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze your site and see where your major bottlenecks are. Then, use this data to improve as much of your site as possible. 

Some of the most common mistakes here include:

• Using image files that are much too large
• Neglecting to compress images
• Using a central server instead of a content delivery network
• Having too many HTTP requests

Work with someone who can improve on each of these areas and see how much faster your customers can use your pages.

6. Don’t Wait to Build High-Quality Backlinks

Having links to your site from other locations is huge when it comes to your SEO ranking. It suggests that you are well-respected on other websites, and the more prestigious the better.

As such, at the same time as making content for your site, reach out to other locations. Ask them if they would be open to either doing a link swap or if they would appreciate you writing for them. Creating guest posts like these can give you a much better reputation, as you will start to get more hits from people who didn’t know about you before.

Make sure to avoid unscrupulous SEO tactics, though, such as buying backlinks. Once a search engine learns of these tactics, it may punish your site or even remove your listing for trying to manipulate the algorithm.

7. Don’t Postpone the Use of Social Media

Whether you aren’t a fan, or you worry it will be too much work, try to avoid neglecting the potential of social media. It allows you to share your content with a wide audience of fans, whether that is locally or on a worldwide scale.

A few of the ways you can make it much more likely to drive traffic to you are:

• Engage with followers and build a community around your brand
• Promote new content and updates to continue appearing relevant
• Track your social media metrics to see what draws people in
• Humanize your business and avoid looking like a bland company

These are all aspects of a modern business that can ensure people consider your brand more than a logo and a name.

8. Don’t Fail to Focus on Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process by which you make it easier for search engines to see your site and display its content. There are several common mistakes people make in this area, so ensure that you:

• Check for broken links and 404 errors on your site
• Use schema markup to help search engines read your site’s content
• Ensure your site uses HTTPS, not HTTP
• Use a site crawler to see how sites like Google view your website

This list is not exhaustive, so take the time to ensure technical challenges do not hold you back.

Boost Your Organic Traffic with an Expert SEO Partner

While all the above tips can get you over the top and into everyone’s search engine results, it can take time for you to implement them. Despite this, working on all of them can significantly boost your organic traffic and give you a better chance of success.

If you find you do not have time to engage with SEO like this, though, Rose & Cactus can help. We offer tailored solutions to ensure you can get your site ranking on Google’s results. So, send us a message and let us know what we can do to get eyes on you today.