5 Easy SEO Tips to Grow Traffic to Your Wellness Website
You’ve built a website, got your class schedule up and running, posted on social media and you’ve sent out a newsletter to your list (you are sending out newsletters to your list, right?) and now you might be wondering, “Where is all of my organic traffic?”
Wait, what?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. When it comes to creating content for your wellness business, it’s vital to drive traffic to your website. If you want to sell more workshops, retreats and become an expert in your local community or online, then you’ll want to focus on driving the right audience (your prospective customers) to your site.
Learn these 5 easy tips to grow traffic to your wellness website with authenticity and ease
Google Analytics - learn it and implement it
Make your content better than the top 3 results for your target keywords
Provide up-to-date, relevant content to your audience
Leverage the power of snippets
Outshine your competition with E-A-T
You may be scratching your head right now wondering what on earth I am on about, but don’t worry, I’ll break down each tip for you into easy-to-understand steps where you can take immediate action to improve your SEO.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) in simple terms, is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility when people search for products and services related to your wellness business in a search engine. The better the visibility your webpages have in search results, the more traffic you’ll drive to your site.
Let’s look at some statistics
68% of online experiences begin with a search engine (2019 BrightEdge)
14.1% of all search queries are in the form of a question (2020, Backlinq)
91.9% of all searches start from Google (2022, globalStats)
78% of consumers use the internet to find information about local businesses more than once a week (2022, Brightlocal)
Tip 1: Google Analytics - learn it and implement it
Google Analytics help you understand which pages your users are visiting and will help you improve your customer journeys. The better you understand your customers and their needs, the more analytics will help you improve your webpages.
Analytics provide valuable insights that can help you to shape the success of your wellness business
With Google Analytics, you can uncover valuable data about your audience to determine which channels (newsletters, social networks, other websites, etc.) drive most of the traffic to your website and what pages people are visiting.
The Audience section in your analytics provides a lot of information about the people who visit your website such as their age, gender, interests, devices, and location. When we are clear who are target audience is, then we can make valuable decisions about driving the right content to them.
If you are using a web building platform like Squarespace or Wordpress, you can easily connect Google Analytics to them and view basic stats inside the platform. Going to Google Analytics and logging in directly however, will display much richer insights about your website and traffic.
How to set this up
Go to Google Analytics
Log in to set up your profile and review your data
Set a reminder (at least monthly) to check your stats and traffic
Tip 2: Make your content better than the top 3 results for your target keywords
If you were your target audience, would you want to read your content or your competitors?
Did you know?
When it comes to search results, the number 1 result in Google gets 31.7% of all clicks. Go to a search engine right now and search the keywords that you want to promote on your website and have a look at who is ranking highest for those words.
For example….
Let’s say you want to search for the keywords “yoga retreats costa rica 2023” because this is something you want to offer to your customers.
Search results will show any paid ads first, but let’s look at the top three results in the list (see above graphic.)
Click on the first three URLs and start reading and researching them. Look at these websites against your own content and ask yourself the following questions:
Do these keywords currently appear on my website? (If not, they should)
What other keywords should I be adding to my content?
What can I be doing better?
Look at the other words that will entice customers - these are the descriptor words like “best” “stunning” “discover” “luxury” anything that will hook your customers in. Would these resonate with your customers? If so, update your content to include them.
Once you have viewed your competitors websites, then re-write the content on your own site that is BETTER than these top 3 searches. Include images with descriptive alt tags (these are the words used to describe your photos for people with visual impairments - Google looks at these when ranking.) Use original images instead of stock photos, if you can. While a mixture of stock photos are fine, be aware that these stock photos will also be used across other websites and may detract from the search algorithm, so you’ll want to use your own images to create authority AND original content.
Write copy that will hook your users in and entice them to read more and learn more. Make sure you have a clear call-to-action (CTA) on each page, or better yet, more links to take your users further.
Tip 3: Provide up-to-date, relevant content to your audience
When was the last time you checked all of the links on your website? Are they still working?
Set a monthly reminder to consistently check your website links so that you provide the best and most up-to-date information to your audience. If your website links don’t work, your prospective customers will leave your site and never come back.
Provide up-to-date, relevant content to your audience with these content-generating ideas
Long form content ranks well on Google - these are robust, long content pages with a mixture of images (with alt tags), statistics, videos, podcasts, etc., that show you are an expert in your field. When you create consistently relevant content, you’ll rank higher in Google.
Create content focused on trending topics in your industry - people are interested in what’s new and if you’re talking about it, then you’ll rank higher in search results.
Run surveys or polls to create content your users want to learn about - when you ask your users directly what they’re interested in, then you can provide them with exactly what they want.
Build long-form content on a variety of topics – don’t post content on your website that’s just on a single topic – look a little wider for related topics that still fit into your world. For example, if you teach yoga, try expanding out to adjacent topic areas that compliment your area of expertise:
Yoga poses for anxiety (or other ‘hot’ topics)
Breath work for self confidence
Natural supplements to increase energy (how supplements may compliment yoga)
Crystals that support an anxious mind (adjacent topic + ‘hot’ topic)
Good posture means a more confident you (looking at the spine from a chiropractic point of view - you might even consider an interview with a chiropractor as a complimentary view point or teach your audience about how spines work)
Engage with influencers, journalists and other web sites that would value the content you share on your site. Try reaching out to people in your field or an adjacent field. Here’s some examples: homeopaths, energy healers, Om Yoga magazine, Elephant Journal, local newspapers, or local retreat venues. Getting other businesses or brands to share your links on their websites and social networks, means more opportunities for people to find you. Then, you’ll be able to track in Google Analytics which of those outside links are the most beneficial to you, so that you can continue to nurture those relationships.
4. Leverage the power of snippets
Snippets are position zero in the results page. If you compared your webpages with the snippets that appear for your target keywords, do you think your content can compete?
How Google’s featured snippets work
Google’s search results sometimes show listings where the snippet describing a page comes before a link to a page. Results displayed this way are called "featured snippets." You may find featured snippets on their own within overall search results, insdie the "People also ask" section.
Look at the example above for “yoga for beginners weight loss” - when you type this in you’ll see some other questions that people ask - this helps users find the right questions to their search. If you expand each of these answers, you’ll see a different website appears in the answer and you’ll see the bold words highlighted that relate to the search.
Do these keywords appear on your website, if you are offering the same or similar thing? If not, they should be.
Set aside some time to look at a few snippets for the keywords you want to promote on your website and make sure that you’re incorporating the relevant keywords on your own pages.
Tip 5: Outshine your competition with E-A-T
What the heck is E-A-T? It stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. And, in order to outshine your competition, you’ll want to display these characteristics on your website, your social networks and in-person.
Good content quality is essential for positioning
Check your home page, landing pages, product or service pages – and supporting those pages are all of your blog posts. You’ll want to make sure you are adding Expertise to all of your pages. You do this by including statistics, videos, definitions, tutorials and topics that your competition are not talking about. This builds your credibility as a Subject Matter Expert (SME).
From an authority standpoint, you should be talking about things that the industry deems to be relevant. Do some research in your specific subject area to find out what the latest trends and ‘hot’ topics are - then start talking about them. Also, see tip 3 above, where you create content around related topics that still fit into your sector.
From a trustworthiness standpoint, you’ll begin to build credibility when other websites are linking to your content. See the expertise point above, where you are adding stats, definitions, tutorials, etc. to your own content. If you reach out to influencers, journalists and other media outlets and they link to your content, you’ll begin to build trust in your field.
Ways to implement E-A-T
Do your research - what are the most relevant questions people are talking about today that you may not be addressing in your content? Once you start finding out, you can create a robust FAQ section on your website.
FAQs are an incredible part of what impacts SEO. Once you find these questions (hint, hint - go back to tip 4 snippets) start writing about them.
Answer those questions in an FAQ and then go above and beyond and create more content. eg. a long form FAQ blog post, a video demonstrating that FAQ, Reels and Insta post on a single FAQ or perhaps a podcast of FAQs.
Finally, edit or remove old content that is out-of-date, outside of your area of expertise or no longer feels complimentary or relevant to your topic area.
Finally, make sure you review your own website frequently. Can your prospective customers easily find the information they are looking for? Is the goal of your website clear? Make sure the navigation is clear, intuitive and important pages are never more than 1-2 clicks away. For a checklist on how to keep your content fresh and accurate, read more practical tips to bring your wellness business vision and purpose to life.
