Why doesn’t my website have traffic?!

Why Doesn't My Website Have Traffic?!

“Why doesn’t my website have traffic?!”

Perhaps you’ve asked yourself this question before. Or, more likely – perhaps you’ve wanted to shout this question at your computer screen after heaving it out the window.

There’s nothing quite as frustrating as investing in a complete website design only to have it sit on the web idly with zero traffic. Your website should be a virtual sales funnel, right?

If your website is a no man’s land, it’s condition can likely be attributed to one of the following four reasons.

1. People aren’t finding you in search engine results.

Unfortunately, what many website owners are unaware of, is that a web design is only the first step. Regardless of how well your website has been designed, if you’re not reaching the eyes of potential customers, nobody will travel down your sales funnel.

So where do most users begin searching for businesses? You’ve probably guessed it already: search engines.

In fact, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. The only problem is that 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.

It’s clear that being present in search engines is important, but how can you reach the eyes of your target audience with so many other websites competing for the first page? The answer is not to sit back and cross your fingers.

Search engines like Google are powerful but the doesn’t mean we, as website owners, are powerless. #SEO

@osc_webdesign

You’ve probably heard of a complicated sounding term before called ‘Search Engine Optimization’, or SEO for short. This is a marketing approach that involves a variety of tactics that help websites rank higher in organic search results.

Your website doesn't have traffic because you're neglecting SEO.

Search engine optimization is growing in popularity and a service that corporations are investing thousands of dollars in. Luckily, you don’t have to be a baller to afford SEO. There are more affordable, smaller SEO firms that are just as effective. You can even work on SEO for your website all by yourself!

The following video gives a broad overview of SEO.

2. Your website hasn’t been indexed.

In order for search engines like Google to know your website exists, they need to index it. They send little programs called “spiders” to automatically sort through your website and determine where you belong.

This happens automatically and you can’t control exactly when it’s done, but you can organize your website for them and speed up the process.

How?

  1. Create an XML sitemap.
  2. Submit your sitemap to Google.

Fortunately, even if your website is indexed in a poor state, the spiders will visit on occasion to re-index your website. You can speed this up even more with SEO.

3. Your website design isn’t responsive.

If your web design isn’t responsive, users who enter your website on tablets or mobile devices are not likely to stick around for long.

Get more traffic with a responsive web design.
Image source: The Mobile Web Hub

As you can see, the unresponsive design above on the left is misaligned and difficult to navigate and read. This is a good scenario. Often the design will be so “off” that it glitches up and won’t allow you to scroll at all.

You can probably imagine what a turn off this is for users who visit websites from mobile devices and tablets – a group of people that are growing year after year.

Even Google is pushing websites towards mobile-friendly designs. Back in 2015 they announced:

‘Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results optimized for their devices.’

So if your website’s functionality isn’t a concern for you, the fact that your search engine ranking could plummet may cause some alarm.

The solution for this is responsive website design. Responsive design is actually better than “mobile-friendly” website designs in that it allows your website to adjust fluidly to all screen sizes instead of having separate designs for mobile and desktop.

This is even more important with technology and screen sizes changing rapidly. Want to see responsive web design in action? Move your cursor to the bottom right of this window and adjust it’s size. You’ll notice that the text and navigation bar continue to display appropriately.

4. People aren’t searching for you.

This reason isn’t as depressing as it sounds. Just because people aren’t searching for your website or business name directly, it doesn’t mean they don’t want your services. Maybe they just haven’t heard of you yet!

Once you begin putting effort into your website’s SEO, you’ll realize how important keywords are. Keywords are the words people enter as search queries in Google.

Get more traffic with the right keywords.

Even though ‘portland maine barber shop’ is technically multiple words, it’s considered a single keyword.

Imagine you own a barber shop in Portland, Maine called Hairtopia. Potential customers who haven’t heard of your business are not going to enter ‘hairtopia’ into search engines. It’s up to you show Google what you are, and where you are so they know you’re a relevant result for ‘portland maine barber shop’.

This is where local SEO comes in. Learn more about this in our article How to Rank Higher in Local Search Engine Results.


It’s time to clear the tumbleweeds away from your no man’s land of a website. By overcoming the challenges outlined above, your website will become the busy funnel of conversion it was meant to be!

Share on Twitter

Ready to increase your success?