What are two things every business owner would love more of? Sales and website traffic. Of course, more website traffic can help lead to more sales, so today weâre going to talk about some simple, effective ways to increase website traffic and grab more attention for your site.
Ask a digital marketer and theyâll tell you that solid SEO is the best way to get sustained traffic to your website — and theyâre not wrong. But SEO alone wonât take a websiteâs traffic from good to great. Plus, SEO can get technical and sometimes require hiring a professional to properly execute. The strategies weâll discuss today are for every business, SEO experts or not.
By maintaining a multi-channel strategy for traffic growth, the companyâs website will be in a better position to target multiple variables in search engine algorithms, which will also help overall SEO. These are strategies any digital team can put into effect that will have a lasting impact on website traffic.
Paying attention to website traffic is important for a lot of reasons. Conversion rates is definitely a top one. Another good reason to review and improve website traffic as the business grows is the ability to participate in targeted advertising and lookalike audiences. For a lot of these services to work well, though, companies need a minimum amount of site traffic to target effectively.
These algorithms require a certain amount of data to be able to match ads with the most relevant customers. By increasing website traffic and your email list, these data points can then be used to create more effective and less costly advertising â doesnât that sound like a win-win?
So, letâs dive into 5 strategies for increasing website traffic that every business can implement.
Effective Ways to Boost Website Traffic
1. Blogging
The Internet loves content, especially fresh content. If your business is not the type that would need to create new articles on a regular basis, you can counter that with a blog. Blogs are very effective for attracting traffic for specific or niche topics.
Blogs are essentially mini articles that are meant to inform and educate potential and current customers. Posts should help to educate or inform customers and leads. They are a way to get your brand message out there and inform the public about products or services.
The problem most companies face with blogging is not having SEO in mind when deciding what content to create and then not marketing the blog to existing fans, followers and customers.
When it comes to blogging, keyword research and writing SEO-friendly content are extremely important for the longevity of the post and being found in search. Whatâs the point of writing it if no one is going to read it, right?
A solid blog strategy will always start with keyword research. Blog posts wonât hold their value if they cannot be found in search. Focus on long-tail keywords and topics that solve problems for your customers. Starting with keyword research means that the content will be focused on what people are searching for and will have a higher chance of ranking. Blog posts arenât very valuable to a business if there is no interest in the content.
Make sure to include links within the posts to related content on the site. This not only improves ranking within Google, but it makes it super easy for customers to find that content. Do not rely on customers searching for themselves. If the blog post includes a soft sell at the end asking customers to check out a product or service, that should be linked directly in the copy.
Once the post is published, share, share, share! The biggest mistake made with blogs is their lack of promotion. An average of 42% of professional blog posts receive less than 10 interactions due to inadequate marketing. Once itâs published, do not expect people to find it on their own. Some will, but most will need to find it out on the world wide web. Again, make it easy for your current and potential customers. Share the post via social media channels and in the newsletter.
Guest posting is another way to use blogging to your benefit. Guest posting will help not only get the brand and company in front of more people, but it will also generate backlinks which help signal to search engines that this company is a reliable source.
Find publications in the industry that arenât direct competitors and reach out with a pitch for content. Many publications are happy to publish quality content because they are always churning out more. This is a tried and true way to expand the audience, create backlinks, and network online.
Creating a specific strategy around blogging will help to drive traffic, increase social interactions, and provide newsletter content. Embracing blogging can actually support a lot of the following strategies as well.
Paid Social Media
Social media is still a great place to buy ads for a low cost and see a big return. Itâs not uncommon for brands who focus on social ads to see higher than average conversion rates.
However, this is still an investment and should be treated as such. Chances are that your company does not have a bottomless budget to focus solely on advertising. To effectively place social media ads, budget needs to be the first discussion.
Once a budget is established, itâs time to think about what kinds of ads to place. All advertising should be working towards some kind of specific objective. Just increasing website traffic isnât a narrow enough goal for a strategic use of budget. Instead of focusing on the broad objective of website traffic, think of what action youâd like that traffic to take.
Should they sign up for the email list to capture them there? Should they make a purchase for a specific product? Should they fill out a form to get more information? Thinking of the action they should take will help avoid ads geared toward the homepage. Spending money on clicks that donât know what they should do once they land on a page is a waste of time, budget, and analytics.
Not sure what types of ads to run? Some common ads include:
- Highlighting a popular article that solves a problem for customers and includes a call to action such as signing up for the email list within the article itself.
- Sign ups for the email list
- Boosting posts that are already popular. Using content that is working takes out the guesswork. Only do this if the post has a clear objective. If people are loving a silly gif or image that was posted, but it doesnât have a clear call to action, that post is not a good candidate.
Of course, any good strategy requires testing. Many companies make the mistake of creating one ad, one campaign, and one audience and only running those. Unfortunately, this method can sometimes eat up budgets without giving any return. The best strategy for ads is to test. By testing multiple creatives and copy you will be able to narrow down which ads are most effective â which ones cost the least and give the biggest return.
Taking all this into consideration, a strategic plan for ads can send consistent and qualified leads back to the website.
***Â ***
Check out Part 2 of our Fast & Easy Ways to Increase Website Traffic blog series!