Website Not Getting Any Traffic or Sales? Here’s the Solution

March 13, 2017 / Business

There’s nothing worse than investing lots and time and effort into creating your new website only to find that hardly anyone visits and no one buys your products. It’s a common problem but, fortunately, one which can be turned around. In this post, we’ll look at the reasons for your lack of visitors and sales and show you how to increase both.

Why isn’t my site getting any traffic?

There are lots of things that can prevent your site getting traffic. In this section, we’ll take a look at the major causes and show you how to put things right.

  1. Your site isn’t ranking
    The term organic traffic is used to describe the people who visit your site after finding it on a search engine. To get organic traffic, your site needs to rank well in search engine results. Generally speaking, the higher you rank, the more traffic you will get.
    Getting onto the top pages of search engine results is not an easy task and takes time. However, if you work to improve your ranking, the resulting increase in traffic can be a game changer for your business.
    To rank highly, one of the things you need to do is carry out search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO covers a wide range of things, including the speed of your website, the way you structure your content and the way you use keywords on your site.
    You also need to have links to your site from other high-quality websites and the best way to obtain these is to produce excellent content that others will want to link to.
    Together, SEO and great content will help improve your website’s domain authority and this will eventually lead to higher ranking and increased traffic.
    Also Read: 8 Easy Steps to Increase Your Domain Authority.
  2. No-one knows your site is there
    Websites shouldn’t just rely on search engines to get found. Besides organic traffic, you can also get direct traffic (people who type in your web address), and referral traffic (from adverts and links on other websites or social media). However, if no-one knows your website is there, no-one is going to visit.
    To get those other types of traffic, you need to promote your website and there are various ways you can do this. One of the best ways is to list your website on a reputable business directory. You can do this for free on both Google My Business and Yell.
    These will help you appear in search engine results when someone looks for your type of business. They can also generate useful, high-quality backlinks for your site. A warning, though: don’t list your site on lots of spammy directories, Google may penalise you for this.
    Another way to promote your business is to set up social media accounts on sites like Facebook or Twitter. Social media is a great way to promote your business, showcase your products and develop your brand.
    If your posts contain links to your website, they will increase the amount of traffic you get. The key to success with social media is to create valuable content that is interesting enough for people to like and share.
    You can also use more traditional methods to promote your website, such as advertising. Online, this is often done through pay per click (PPC) ad campaigns using services such as Google AdWords or Bing Ads. You can also run a PPC campaign on some social media sites which is often less expensive than with Bing or Google.
    Finally, don’t restrict yourself to online promotions. Make sure your web address is on every piece of literature or advert you send out, put it on your t-shirts, on stickers in your car windows and have it displayed around your premises.
  3. You’re not focussing on the right traffic sources
    Just because your promotional methods get seen doesn’t mean anyone is going to click on them. The only way that will happen is if what people see is useful to them. This means you need to understand where, online, your target customers hang out.
    For example, if you are a B2C company, you might be better putting ads on Facebook instead of LinkedIn, whereas, if you are a B2B company it might be better the other way around.
    You should also consider how your visitors behave online. A company buyer might have both a Facebook account and a LinkedIn account. It’s likely, that if they are going to make a purchase for their company, they’ll click on links seen on LinkedIn.
    To make sure you are targeting your efforts in the right place. You will need to do some audience research to find the most effective channel.
    Why is no-one buying from me?
    There are many reasons why people won’t buy from you. One of the first things you need to do is look at the traditional reasons people don’t make purchases. Have you got your pricing right? Are your products or services as good as your competitors? Have you got bad reviews? All these can have an impact and need looking at.
    When it comes to your website, there are other potential reasons why people don’t buy. Here are the main ones.
  1. Your website is not up to scratch
    Online visitors are a demanding bunch and have high expectations of the websites they visit. Here is a list of the things they will expect:
    1.  Your site will load quickly. If it doesn’t, they’ll leave.
    2. They can find what they want easily through menus and search bars.
    3. They can read the site easily, no matter what device they are using.
    4. Purchasing is made simple. Long and complex checkouts make people abandon their shopping carts.
    5. Your website is fresh and attractive to your audience. Different audiences like different things, make sure yours works for your audience.
  2. Your site isn’t trustworthy
    No one is going to buy from a dodgy looking website and this means even legitimate businesses have to make sure their websites look genuine. To do this you need to have the following in place:
    1. All policies are easily accessible on your site: terms and conditions, refunds, cookie policy, privacy policy, etc.
    2. You display full contact details including phone number, email address and physical address. Ideally, people will trust you more if they know you have business premises and a landline.
    3. If you are a registered company, list your registration number.
    4. If you are VAT registered, list your VAT number.
    5. If you are a member of a professional association, display its badge on your website.
      Most importantly, if you take online payments from customers, you must have the green padlock sign showing on a user’s browser. This indicates that your website is secure. To obtain this, you need an SSL certificate that encrypts their credit card data when they buy from you.
      Also Read: SSL Essential Now Google Warn Users of Non-Secure Websites.
      If you have these things in place, those who visit your site are more likely to trust you and buy from you.
  3. You’re not attracting the right visitors
    It is possible to get lots of people to visit your website for the wrong reason. They come looking for something, see that it’s not there and then leave. This can be caused by quite a few things but the most common ones are poor keywording and poorly targeted adverts.
    Poor keywording often results in your website ranking for a keyword you didn’t intend it to. It can happen because of the vocabulary you have used or because one of your keywords has a double meaning.
    For example, a man’s fashion site promoting slimline drains (drainpipe trousers) might start ranking in results for the narrow drain pipes sought by plumbers. Similarly, an Edinburgh-based woollen company selling Scotch bonnets might get lots of traffic from people looking for hot chillies.
    To discover what terms people are using to find your site, check out your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts. These can be very useful in helping you discover problems with your keywords.
    With advertising, you could be placing the ads in the wrong places or asking for them to be shown to the wrong demographic. Make sure that you check your advertising statistics carefully and make changes where necessary.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article will have shed light on why your site has not performed well with either traffic or sales. It should have given you an understanding of the causes of poor performance and an insight into the things you can do to turn things around.

Do remember that it takes time for new websites to establish themselves and that maintaining high traffic and keeping sales levels high is something which needs continual work.

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Author

  • Arjun Shinde

    I'm an experienced digital marketer with expertise in planning, SEO, SEM, and social media. I'm good at creating engaging content and optimising campaigns for a strong online presence.

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