It used to cost a lot of time, money, and effort to build a physical location to run a business, and even then you’d have to be in a visible spot alongside of the road to be lucky enough to get traffic without heavy marketing spend. These days, you can set up a website, get hosting, and start getting customers for a fraction of the cost.

But much like a store located in a back alley without advertisements, a website that is off the grid and not getting any traffic is going to turn into a sunk cost quicker than you can say “search engine results page.” With over half of website visitors coming via organic search, knowing these 3 mistakes that will kill your web traffic is vital to making sure you maintain a healthy flow of visitors to you.

Your posts aren’t focused in on the right keywords

By now we all know that content marketing is the only sure-fire way to get people to your site via organic search. Here are some eye-opening stats about it:

  • 81% of customers trust information they read from a company’s blog
  • B2Bs that blog get 67% more leads
  • 61% of online consumers have made a purchase based on a blog

But putting out any old stuff is going waste your time and money. You need to focus your posts in on keywords that you customers might be searching for. Write-ups about a local event or fun lists are OK from time to time, but you should see which terms are being searched for the most in your niche, compile a list, and cycle through them regularly. Don’t forget about long-tail keywords either. A post about dog walkers is nice, but how about night time dog walkers in Manhattan? The more specific your scope is, the better.

Your blogs are too short

The average attention span of the online customer is around 8 seconds according to research, so it might sound counter-intuitive to think that longer posts might be better, but if we delve a little deeper then it begins to make sense. You aren’t peddling to the average consumer, you are writing for a specific demographic that is looking for information about you.

While short posts with bullet points and headers go a long way, more thorough posts actually cater to your demographic and Google much better than short ones do. A thorough post that covers the ins and outs and fills in every nook and cranny is going to do better. Quicksprout found their posts over 1,500 words got 68% more tweets and 22% more likes right off the bat.

You aren’t using social media right

Although a smaller amount of web visits come from social media than from organic traffic, it still remains that it is a powerful tool at your disposal. There are a few major social media mistakes that companies make, such as:

  • Using the wrong network – If you are a B2B that focuses on professional products or services, LinkedIn is the place to go. LinkedIn is responsible for 80% of a business’s social media leads!
  • Not posting at the right time – Posts on Thursdays have the longest life span. Make sure to post when your demographic is awake (obviously) and don’t hesitate to post multiple times to make sure you hit different time zones.
  • Not creating sharable content with images – Posts with images crush. They get a lot more engagement. Fun content like lists belong on Facebook, informative pieces and white papers on LinkedIn and pictures on Pinterest. Play to the strengths of your network.

There are nearly 3 billion people in the world with access to the internet, which means that there are plenty of people to come visit your website. However, you need to make sure that they know you are there. Content, social media, search engines, and email are the modern world’s highways, billboards, and road signs. Make sure that you are using them right by avoiding these 3 mistakes that kill your web traffic.