I was driving to work this-morning and on the news there was traffic congestion all over the city, and this got me thinking – what causes increased traffic.

In the off-line world, you’ll usually notice traffic increases for a number of reasons:

• It could be because a particular area has become increasingly popular – the ‘cool’ place to live
• It could be due to the area offering ideal living conditions – nice sized yards, friendly neighbors, a great community, low crime rate etc.
• It could be due to excellent facilities – close to shops, public transport, schools and hospitals
• It could be thanks to affordable pricing

There are plenty of other reasons, but the list above gives you a pretty good idea why certain areas are better to live than others and that means that the traffic to those areas increases.

Now, why am I talking about regional economic growth on a SEO blog? Because the exact same concepts apply in the online world.

Image is important

When you drive through a sought-after residential area you’ll notice the houses all look rather nice, they are well maintained and the lawns are well manicured. If there was a run-down, poorly maintained house that needed a new paint job, some windows fixed and a whole lot of other work – it would really stand-out from the rest (and in a bad way).

Don’t let your website be that run-down looking house – keep the design fresh, make changes to the design (at least) every couple of years, make sure everything works (no old broken links floating around) and keep the content up-to-date.

Reputation can go a long way

The ‘cool’ areas to live are popular because people know about them – they aren’t tucked away at the back of a town that no one has ever heard of and the same is true for websites.

If your site is sitting not being noticed by anyone, you’ll never become the popular online destination that people want to go to. The best way to gain exposure and build an online reputation is through social media… the more you interact (as long as you aren’t insulting… unless that’s how you want to be perceived) the more popular you’ll become.

Bad Neighborhoods

It’s never a pleasant experience walking down the street in a bad neighbourhood – you’re constantly checking over your shoulder, you don’t feel comfortable or safe and one wrong move could end-up being quite costly.

Websites that link with bad online neighbourhoods also fail to make your users feel comfortable – if there’s lots of pop-ups, links to adult sites, pharmaceuticals and gambling pages, more advertising than actual content etc. your website will become the street that people don’t want to walk down.

Great Facilities

In the list above I also mentioned that areas within close proximity to a selection of useful facilities will always attract people because they know they won’t have to go far to get everything they need.

By incorporating online tools, links to useful sites, having a really easy-to-follow navigation structure and making use of sitemaps you reduce your clients need to search around and go elsewhere. Turn your website into a place handy to all the facilities your users would want.

Plan Ahead

When an area becomes too popular all the traffic can start to cause congestion. If you don’t want this to happen with your website – do what your local government planners should do and plan ahead. Find a web host that is capable of supporting decent amounts of traffic or a hosting plan that can be easily upgraded. Make sure you’re using your own domain name and that all the domain contact details are kept up-to-date so if you have to move, you can do so without running into unnecessary challenges.

Same, Same but Different

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities between the online and offline worlds (there are also a lot of differences), but if you try and keep things simple and apply everyday logic to your website, hopefully you’ll be able to create a location that people will want to ‘virtually’ live at.

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