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Building a website is a vital part of growing your online business. But once it's set up, how do you generate traffic? And once you have consistent traffic, how do you get viewers to return to your website?

When I built my first website, I was curious about all these things too.

Let's go over the best ways to not only get consistent traffic but to also have viewers who return to your site and become part of your growing audience.

How to Get More Website Traffic

Before we can have returning visitors, we need them to find to our website for the first time!

This part is a bit tricky because there's so much different information on the internet about growing website traffic. It can make growing a website seem daunting and difficult, but it doesn't have to be.

Let's talk about some of the best ways to grow your site traffic!

Optimize your Website for Google

When I first learned about this and read the letters "SEO" I felt one emotion; confusion.

I am no tech genius, so the idea of using Google to my advantage felt far out of my comfort zone.

I've come a long way since then, and I can now happily say that I have learned a TON about SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization) and it's not nearly as difficult as I previously thought.

It's relatively simple once you get the gist of it, so here are some of the most important things to set up to optimize your site for Google:

• Keywords. To find the best keywords for your site, the best thing you can do is go to the main Google search bar and type with the intent of finding whatever specific question your audience is consistently searching. For example, if I have a website about fashion and one of the main topics I focus on is creating outfits using jeans, then I might type "how to style jeans" and see what comes up in the recommended. Google will try to guess what you're typing based off of what other people search regularly. You can use these recommendations as your long-tail keywords (which are important to focus on).

• Headings. When building your website, maybe you noticed the different options when adding text. Heading 1-6 as well as the paragraph options are available to you. These are very important to SEO as it tells Google what your website is about. Your site should only have one Heading 1 and when you add your first Heading 2 use one of the long-tail keywords from the Keywords section above.

• Description. Within the SEO section of your website (should be located in the same place as where you input your keywords) you can add the description of the page you're in. Make sure you're adding this page's Keywords into the description, as Google also takes this into consideration.

• Pictures. This can be overlooked by a lot of people, but it does help with Google rankings! The name you give the file of your graphics should also be Keyword-optimized.

How to Blow Away Your Site's Viewers with Web Design

Not only is the information and wording on your website important, but so is the look!

Taking a peek at websites you really love graphically from your favourite online coaches, bloggers, or content creators is really important to get a feel of what you want your website to look like or what you may want to tweak in your site.

Take inspiration from others, but don't copy them. Use their site to inspire the vision you have for your website.

Once you have a few examples for inspiration it's time to put everything together into something that feels like you and your brand but also something your website's viewers will love!

Colour Palettes and Fonts

I've touched on this in other blog posts, but deciding your colour palette and fonts are really important to not only your website, but also places like your social media, graphics, and digital products.

For fonts, I recommend choosing something bold as your headings, text with serif (but still easily readable) as your sub-headings, and sans-serif text for your paragraphs.

Colour palettes are one of my favourite things to create for clients.

I go more in-depth in other blog posts, but choosing one or two main colours and building light, dark, and complimentary colours surrounding them is a good way to go.

Pictures and Graphics

Using pictures of yourself and creating awesome graphics can help break up text sections on your website.

They can also make your overall site look much cleaner and more pleasing to the eye.

My preferred platform which I use to make all of my graphics is Canva (the Pro version) and I absolutely love it! It's a vital part of my business which I use daily.

Once you have access to your preferred graphic design platform, create trendy graphics for your website using the colour palette and fonts you've chosen. Templates can be helpful if you're feeling stuck with this.

When taking pictures, make sure they can see your face clearly no matter what angle you're taking it from.

Also, try to colour-coordinate your outfit with your brand colour palette.

If your main colour is blue, but you're wearing a different shade of blue in your photos, they can clash in future graphics and on your website page.

My Favourite Copy Tip for Websites

One of the most important lessons I've learned since first starting my website is that pretty much all of the copy you write is about your readers and how you can help them.

Bottom line; It's not about you.

If you keep that in mind when writing your website copy, it will seriously help your viewers to understand what they get out of becoming part of your audience and understand the value they'll receive when they return to your site.

A great way to go about this is by brainstorming what questions your audience is wondering, and then answering those questions in your copy.

Build your Online Audience the Right way

There are a few different places you can build your audience, such as with a blog or online event.

Once you figure out your preferred place of growing your audience, then you can keep in touch using a freebie to guide them to your email list or through social media.

This will keep you fresh in their mind and part of your community.

What do you do now?

Send me a DM on Instagram so we can talk a bit about the business you're building this website for!

See you soon!

Isabella