4 Steps to Drive More Traffic to Your Site

Have you ever gone onto a website looking for something and found you couldn't even understand what they were talking about? Or worse, that you couldn't get enough information to help you make a decision?

This happens more often than it should. The fault usually lies with content managers thinking "complicated" means "better," or simply not knowing how to showcase a service or product in a way that helps the user make an informed decision.

A Quick Comparison: Apple vs. Samsung

(Note: the original screenshots referenced here are broken/corrupted in the source file and need to be re-sourced before publishing — flagging as a separate technical fix.

Here's a comparison of two leading mobile phone websites, Apple's iPhone features page and Samsung's Galaxy Note 5 features page. Glance at both, and within three seconds you'll likely have already decided which makes for a better browsing experience.

Both are useful examples of web marketing content and design tactics used by competitors in the same sector. Comparing them side by side:

• The Apple page lays its copy clearly; the Samsung page has more white space and looks comparatively blank.

• Apple outlines its features boldly, in keyword-rich prose; Samsung shows the same information as a plain list.

• Apple's product shots are more deliberately styled, with real weight given to look and feel; Samsung's are plainer, with additional product shots reduced to small, browsable icons.

Which one is more persuasive? Which is more engaging to you? Overall, when Google ranks results based on user experience and time spent browsing a site, that difference matters, and it's not hard to guess which of the two tends to come out on top.

This is exactly why content and design need to work together: rich in the keywords that make a page findable, optimised for search engines, and genuinely appealing to the end users who are the real judges of whether it works.

What Is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is, at its core, simply the activity of ensuring a website can be found in search engines for words and phrases relevant to what it offers. In many respects, a form of quality control for websites. Few industries are poorly understood by the people using them.

Put more formally: SEO is a highly compartmentalised, specialised process for building a successful website. Ask some SEO companies to explain it, though, and they'll try to blind you with science, framing it as something closer to a black art than a clear discipline.

How Does SEO Work?

Google, like any search engine, displays sites it believes are authoritative and relevant. Relevance comes from analysing page content, the words people actually read. Authority comes mostly from the number and quality of other pages linking to a given page; links function like votes, and votes get a page elected to the top of search results.

SEO doesn't require narrow, obscure search terms nobody would type, and it doesn't require keyword density so high that a page becomes repetitive. Users search in simple terms, and jargon-heavy content doesn't match how people actually search.

The KISS Principle

Keep It Simple, Silly. It works.

A few reasons simple language wins:

• An estimated 79% of users scan web content rather than read it in full.

• Users have shorter attention spans after scanning large volumes of web content.

• They expect to find what they're looking for in simple, everyday terms.

• Plain language builds trust. Readers are more willing to absorb a message and interact with a brand that talks plainly, rather than one that hides behind vocabulary.

As Haris Krijestorac, a well-known HubSpot blogger, puts it on SEO language:

"Online content doesn't need to appeal to a mass audience to be successful. If you're trying to reach a niche audience, you don't need to dumb down your language or your content. Cater to your audience and focus on doing that really well."

SEO keywords don't need to be complicated to the point of requiring a dictionary. The goal is simply to convey a message and communicate it as tidily as possible. Krijestorac adds: "Is simple language still the best? absolutely. But, as Albert Einstein said, 'make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.'"

4 Steps to Make SEO Easy

1. Strive for short words, sentences, and paragraphs.

2. Feature the lead keyword or key phrase within the first 25 words of page copy, which should run to a minimum of 250 words.

3. Don't over-simplify by cutting the key terms your audience is actually searching for, but don't clutter the page around them either.

4. Always build websites for users — your target audience — not for search engines.

Now Go Forth and Multiply

Used well, SEO can meaningfully improve a site's performance in search rankings and multiply site traffic — and sales — many times over.

References

1. Apple 1a. Samsung

2. What is SEO?

3. Content Writing Tips

4. Blogs Use More Complex Language Than Old Media, Haris Krijestorac

Useful Links

• Google Certification Program

• SEO Training courses