Not getting any traffic to your site? Don’t worry. Having zero website traffic is common for new businesses just starting out. If you’re a newly launched online store, it takes a while for Google to know you exist and it takes an even longer time for them to start suggesting your website to shoppers floating around the internet.
With more than a billion websites out there in the world, competition has become fierce. But even with all the competition out there, it’s still possible to rank on the first page of results.
You can achieve this with the right formula.
The formula for gaining organic website traffic is: knowledge, hard work and patience.
You can spend a lot of time doing your SEO, but are you doing it the right way or the wrong way? That’s the real question.
I’m going to show you how to do your SEO the right way so you can get website traffic.
In this article I’m going to help you understand how to think like Google so you can play their game and win.
I’ll teach you everything you need to know so you can start driving website traffic to your store.
Why does website traffic matter?
Getting unpaid “organic” traffic to your store is important because it helps you attract customers without having to pay for them.
If you start ranking for keywords then Google can start to show you in search results when someone searches for that term or phrase.
Unless you’re willing to spend thousands of dollars on advertisements, organic traffic is the sustainable future for your business.
You need it. In fact, you really can’t live without it.
Start thinking like Google
To win at SEO, you have to think like a robot.
Let me tell you something I don’t ever hear anyone else talking about.
Google is a blind robot that doesn’t have any eyes. I know it’s funny, but it’s true.
They can’t see your pretty product pictures, but they can read your product descriptions. The words you use on your product titles and descriptions really help Google understand what you’re selling.
The words you use are extremely important.
Your job as a business owner is to make it easy for Google to understand what you are selling.
If you do this, search engines will be more likely to recommend your products in search results.
Put in the Time
A lot of people want SEO but how many people are willing to work for it?
I hope you’re in it to win or else you can feel free to stop reading this article right about here.
This article is for fighters, the people who are going to keep swinging until they make it to the top.
Look…. you need to beat your competitors.
If your competitors write 1 blog article a month, you’re willing to write 4 blog articles a week.
When your competitors write one sentence product descriptions, you’re willing to write 5 paragraph descriptions.
And if your competitor spend 20 minutes per day on their site, you’re willing to spend 2 hours a day on yours.
Catch my drift?
5 Tips for Getting More Website Traffic
#1 Write 300+ Word Product Descriptions
Product descriptions is an aspect of on-page SEO that often gets overlooked. Store owners think it’s probably not that important. The reality is product descriptions are extremely important for Google.
This is your chance to tell Google and other search engines exactly what you have for sale.
You’ll want to use this opportunity to use lots of descriptive language explaining what your product looks like, what it does, why it’s a must-have item, why the person sitting on their computer looking at your store should click that “buy now” button. Don’t be boring, excite your customers!
We recommend writing at least 300 words minimum, but more is always better! This will help your customers learn more about your product (which can increase sales). This will also help Google learn more about what you’re selling (which can increase your visibility on search results).
Use your main keyword 1-2 times in your product description to help Google understand you really want to rank for this term.
#2 Blog 10k Words Per Month
Blogging is your secret power you didn’t know you had in your tool kit. Use it, hone it, destroy your competition by blogging your little heart out.
How will Google know you’re the best? Your blog.
Check out your top competitors and I bet you all of them have a blog (or massive amounts of backlinks).
Blogging is your opportunity to rank for many “long-tail keywords” that are related to your industry.
Blogging is free to do and easy to keep up with.
What’s the best advice I can give you? Just start!
It’s okay if you aren’t that great at writing, you’ll get better. It’s okay if you don’t really know how to research keywords yet, you’ll eventually learn. Just begin.
Just think, if you wrote 8 blog articles a month, you would have 96 blog articles in a year from now!
I recommend give yourself a monthly goal of 10,000 words per month.
Blogging can help drive website traffic to your store and turn your readers into paying customers.
#3 Create Cornerstone Content
Your job as an online shop is the dominate your niche.
Because really, if you’re not on the first page of results you pretty much don’t matter. You need to show Google you are a top expert in your field. So how do you accomplish this?
You need to provide the best information for your industry and niche.
You need to show Google you sell the best “insert product here,” and you’re a master at “insert industry here.”
If you are an authoritative figure in your field, Google will start to show you in search results. You need to essentially become the cream of the crop.
You can do this by creating a “cornerstone content” page on your website.
Cornerstone content pages can drive massive amounts of organic traffic to your store.
If you need inspiration, check out our cornerstone page called “Shopify SEO” on our website.
#4 Name your Products Smartly with Keywords
Learning how to use keywords in your product titles can drive website traffic to your store.
Sure, there’s an initial learning curve but it’s worth the time and effort to learn.
Check out our guide Keyword Research for Beginners: In 3 Easy Steps!
Using searchable keyword phrases in your product titles can help you get discovered by Google. This means more traffic, more clicks, more sales.
In fact, I’m targeting the keyword “website traffic” for the title of this blog article so I can drive more website traffic to Adolab.
If you’re not quite sure what we are talking about there, check out our beginners guide to creating the perfect product title.
#5 Get Structured Data (JSON-ld code)
Structured data is extra code on the back-end of your website that helps Google understand more about your products.
You can think of structured data as a label machine. It helps Google understand the name, price, description, materials of your product. It can also help dramatically with getting website traffic.
If Google doesn’t know what you’re selling, how can you expect them to recommend you in search results?
Structured data can be added automatically to your site through an app like SEO Get Clicked. SEO Get Clicked is an app made specially for Shopify store owners who need structured data for their store.
Whenever you edit, add or delete a product, this app automatically updates their structured data code to reflect these changes. This ensures that Google gets the information they need about your products and website.
This affects how you appear in search results as well as in ads. A lot of Shopify stores have themes with broken and incomplete structured data that can actually harm their SEO.
SEO Get Clicked can actually override any existing errors you might have on your structured data, so you can be eligible for rich snippets.
SEO Get Clicked – Best Shopify SEO App
SEO Get Clicked helps online stores by providing them with the correct JSON-ld code so they can be eligible for “rich snippets” through Google.
Rich snippets are enhanced search results that display pricing, star ratings, and in-stock availability.
Google is more likely to display websites that contain rich snippets in search results which can lead to a higher click through rate and more website traffic.
Best of all, SEO Get Clicked offers a free 7 day trial so you can test it out and learn how to up your SEO game.
Check Traffic Regularly
How can you measure your progress?
We recommend signing up for a free account with Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
These are both great options for monitoring the SEO health of your website.
On Google Analytics you can see traffic sources and see where people are coming from.
With Google Search Console, you can see if there are any issues with your site that is preventing your website from being shown in search results.
Summary
I hope you’ve enjoyed our article on how to drive website traffic to your online business!
We are big believers that small actions can lead to big rewards later down the road.
Be proactive, take charge, and work hard on your business, and you’ll see good things will happen.
Getting website traffic is like boxing. The real winner in a fight is the one who dusts themselves off, gets back up, and keeps throwing punches.
Yes, it’s going to take a lot of time to see real results but don’t worry because you’re in it for the long run.
Here at Adolab, we believed in our long term vision. We posted our first blog article back in 2017 and now we have over 1,000 top ranking keywords being shown on the first page of Google results.
You can do it. You’ve got this!💪🏼
If you have any questions about website traffic or SEO for ecommerce stores, feel free to get in touch with us here.
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