Why You're Not Getting Enough Traffic to Your Website
The number one way to getting leads for projects you want to design and build is through your website. Period. Yes, there are numerous other ways to bring in some leads - referrals, home shows, PPC, print advertising, you get the point. But in terms of return on your time and money, your website is your best bet.
Before we discuss why you're not getting enough traffic to your site, how do you know whether or not you're getting enough traffic? What is considered enough traffic? Easy: ask yourself these two questions:
- Is your business growing at a rate you want?
- Are most your leads telling from your website?
If the answer isn't an obvious yes to both questions then you're not getting enough traffic to your website. Now let's dive into why.
When was the last time you published a new page on your site?
This is the number one reason why websites don't get enough traffic. Folks in this home remodeling and landscaping industry were quick to get a site up when the everyone-must-have-a-website boom came around (10+ years ago). And that was it. It's just there.
When Google and other search engines visit your website, they want to see new content. If they visit your website (referred to as crawling) and don't find anything new (particularly new pages) then they'll return to your site less often. And why does this matter? Search engines care about recent, fresh content and give higher search ranking results to those that do the frequent increasing of info. Websites that are simply shells or digital brochures - that aren't frequently updated don't deliver the quality content that search engines care about and therefore get pushed down, little by little in search results. So a new website (when done right) would see an automatic boost in rankings and maybe traffic - but without ongoing additions and updates, will see their site lose the battle.
Is your site written for humans or robots?
ABC Landscaping services xyz, def, hij, klm, and ten more of these and yyy cities in blank state. Is that whats all over your website? Or how about We offer landscaping services to people in xyz city that want landscaping services and appreciate good landscaping work. Sound familiar? KEYWORD STUFFING! Don't do it. Related: Keyword Research, Demystified.
Yes, keywords are necessary and the cities you service are helpful, but there is an important balance in a website that drives traffic. Keyword stuffing was great in 2005 and earlier. Today, keyword stuffing does more harm than good. Since high quality content is now a core google algorithm, if your website reads like it's not meant for your target customers to read, then google won't show that page to them - therefore not showing your site in search results. If you don't see enough negative impacts to this, then you should know that this change in google's core algorithm happened in January 2016 and direct from the company's engineers, this isn't an overnight impact but rather will help and penalize companies over a longer period of time.
Have you embraced the different buying stages?
You don't roll out of bed and decide to buy a car for $50,000 do you? Likely not. Well your customers don't agree to a $50k project like that either. Just like you, they have a core reason for doing so first. In the car example, you have a new kid or too much money on gas - you get the point. You start observing different cars on the road and definitely take your research online. While you may come across some car manufacturers websites directly, you actually spend quite a bit of time reading various articles (whether you knew it or not- at least 90% of them were actually blog posts). After several weeks, you become ready to start visiting dealerships.
Related: Home contractors need to sell to buyers at different stages.
Same with homeowners. They need time to research. And if you're only optimized for lets say, "home remodeling" then you're not attracting homeowners in the much earlier part of the buying stages to your website. Keywords like larger spaces, ideas for home remodeling - and hundreds other variations of these are essential attracting the different stages. This is important because the sooner the prospect becomes aware with your brand, the more likely they are going to trust and consider you when they're in the ready to purchase stage.
There's a lot more to getting enough traffic to your website than these three areas. Starting with these three will almost always get you on the right path. Keep in mind, getting traffic is just the first step to using your website for more than just "sending people there to look at your work." You need people to like your company, to call you when they arrive. Enjoy this free recorded webinar to understand how traffic and leads work hand in hand.