10 Ways Web Design Can Increase Your Traffic

For a website to be truly successful, it needs to have visitors, and lots of them. As obvious as that is, it’s amazing how relatively few websites are designed to attract  maximum traffic. The world wide web is a big place and it takes effort to make a website stand out from the crowd. There are a lot of simple yet effective things you can do with web design that will really effect your page rankings. Here’s a list of 10 ways that web design can increase traffic to your site:

1. Limit your use of graphics. Overuse will adversely affect your page rankings, as they make your pages slower to load, costing you valuable visitors who are unwilling to wait around.
2. Create a newsletter. Keep your website in the minds of your readers. Send out a newsletter regularly that features new content and any updates to your site.
3. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The bottom line for this oft-repeated mantra of web hosting is this: You need to incorporate into your website those things (keywords and content) that search engines spiders and search engine users are specifically looking for that will bring them to you.
4. Exchange links. – Essentially what you’re doing here is networking with other websites that are related to yours. Providing back-links to one another’s site helps to increase traffic to both. Your page ranking is very closely linked (pun intended) to this factor. If your website is linked from other sites, then it must be a worthwhile site, goes the reasoning.
5. Avoid using frames. – I know, you want to set up a navigation menu or have some other content on multiple pages and don’t want to have to load it with each visit to a page. Although there is some advantage to using frames, there is much more of a downside to them, namely: they really mess up search engines, and sometimes visitors who wind up following broken links to your website, and leaving.
6. Make periodic changes. – Search engines have a preference for websites that are continually updated. Also, look closely at those pages that aren’t ranking highly in keywords and fix them.
7. Content is King – Yes, it’s true. If you have informative, relevant and frequently updated content, readers will visit more often. Go figure.
8. Install Google Analytics – This is an invaluable tool for assessing where your traffic is coming from, who they are, how they found you and what they were looking for when they did find you. Armed with such info, you can make the appropriate tweaks to your site.
9. Think like your market. – That may sound cryptic, but it’s really very basic. It boils down to knowing exactly what your website is about, who exactly are those people who will be interested in it, and how exactly you would go about finding your website if you were in their shoes.
10. Keep it simple. – Each web page should have a concise, clearly identifiable purpose and message, with keywords specifically tagged for finding it in a search. Help your visitors find you, get them to stay once they do find you, and provide the quality content that will bring them back.

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