An exploration of techniques in generating online traffic to your portfolio.

Simply put, online traffic is the number of visitors to a website and the amount of pages they click on (wiseGEEK, 2016). There are a vast number of ways in generating online traffic to your website itself, some of which, if used correctly, can be very effective.

Search-engine optimisation (SEO) is one the most common and recognised ways for people to increase the flow of traffic. It is simple and easy to understand, therefore both consumers and developers engage with the method. Although search engines such as Google, Yahoo! And Bing have become increasingly sophisticated, they still can’t understand a web page the same as a human. SEO helps the engines figure out what each page is about and calculate how it may be useful for users (Fishkin, 2016).

SEO can be improved via number of ways, to increase website influx. Hyperlinks are one way of doing so as they help readers navigate and drive traffic to the site. Good content is another way, even if there are many SEO techniques to generate traffic, nothing can avoid the need for great journalism’ (Bradshaw and Rohumaa, 2011).

Some people however consider SEO a flawed concept, as it means making content less engaging for readers, instead making it more suitable for search engines to understand (Anderson, 2013). Tim Anderson of The Guardian suggests that social-media optimisation (SMO) is a much more modern and efficient way of generating traffic to ones webpage, as it focuses on a more ‘customer-centric’ interaction, rather than focusing on keywords to increase SEO variances.

But how can SMO used effectively? As aforementioned with relation to SEO, good content is key. SMO is about engaging people with the website through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. And obviously if the content is good it is more likely to spark conversation, likes, shares, retweets, etc. Not only is social media a great way of advertising anyway, its also a good way to spread the word of the brand.

With this information in mind, when it comes to the development of a website, both SEO and SMO methods should be taken into account. If done correctly, traffic to the website should not be a problem. Using simple key words and social media connect-ability throughout the site is a must, whilst other techniques such as constant social media updates will also spark popularity to the site.

References

Anderson, T. (2013). SEO is dead. Long live social media optimisation. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/22/seo-is-dead-long-live-social-media-optimisation [Accessed 2 Mar. 2016].

Bradshaw, P. and Rohumaa, L. (2011). The online journalism handbook. Harlow: Longman.

Fishkin, R. (2016). SEO: The Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization from Moz. [online] Moz. Available at: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary [Accessed 2 Mar. 2016].

wiseGEEK. (2016). What is Website Traffic? (with pictures). [online] Available at: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-website-traffic.htm [Accessed 2 Mar. 2016].

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