A website is a gateway to your business and the center of your marketing. It can be a spot for customers to learn about your services or products and get insight into the type of experience they might have using you. That's why it's essential to build a good website first and then find ways to get people to visit it.
Web traffic — or the volume of potential customers that visit your site on a specific period — must reach a certain level each month to give you a solid Return of Investment (ROI) and ensure business growth. Monitoring your website's traffic will help you determine whether what you are doing now will generate enough buzz to attract an audience and show the results you expect.
The formula for success seems simple — the more traffic you generate, the more you'll see of your ideal customer, and the more sales you'll make at the end of the day. The million-dollar question here is: "How?" It can definitely be a frustrating journey, especially since some things like search engine optimization (SEO) can be a long term investment.
The list below has some industry-proven suggestions on getting more people to your website, multiplying website leads, and improving money coming into your business.
We all use computers every day, that’s why a website is so important.
Tips for Increasing Website Traffic
If you're struggling to come up with innovative ways to boost your website traffic, you're not alone. According to a 2020 survey by the Content Management Institute, many businesses have a hard time finding and creating an attention-grabbing strategy that keeps their websites flooded with prospective customers.
You can find tons of articles online offering you the same old advice, but the truth is that as trends evolve, you need to keep up with the times. Here are the best ways to drive traffic to your website.
Create Valuable Content
The type of content you generate will determine what kind of clients end up visiting your website. To come up with the right content strategy, you'll first need to understand the audience you're targeting. Once you know who your ideal customer is, their location, age group, gender, interests, wants, and needs, you can come up with attractive content ideas that will naturally appeal to them.
You can also find ways to involve your current customers. Ask them what type of content they would love to see from you. Once you create that content make sure to show them with newsletters, webinars, social media posts, podcasts, and other distribution channels.
Pro Tip: Use Your Expertise
Keep in mind that organic search from sites like Google and Bing/Yahoo drives 51% of all web traffic nowadays. Whatever you do, you want to make sure you rank high on search engine sites to see the results you want.
Some popular search engines like Google and Bing/Yahoo favor those authors who seem to be experts in their field. Creating pillar pages and other informative pieces will set you up for success by making you seem more knowledgeable to search engines, and most importantly, to your clients.
Don’t copy and paste others content
Copy-pasting chunks of somebody else's work without giving proper credit is not a practice that's taken lightly by anyone, and search engines like Google are not the exception. The internet giant will penalize you for using content that's not yours. This includes your content structure and places where you’ve used similar wording.
To avoid ranking lower for being seen as a copycat, make sure you create original content and give credit where it's due.
If you create good content but don’t think about how to get it into the hands of your customers then it's useless.
Take the Right Approach To Content Distribution
We've all heard that saying about the tree that falls in the middle of nowhere. The same concept applies when finding the right channels to distribute your content. Your options grow by the day, but it's important you first consider where your target audience is more likely to find your posts. Otherwise, all the effort you've put in creating original and relevant content will be in vain. This would be a shame considering all the time and resources your team spends handcrafting the right assets for your public.
Content distribution is taking all the materials you've created — blog posts, ebooks, white papers, pillar pages, infographics, images, videos, you name it — and scattering them across your preferred platforms. That could be with a blog on your own site, sharing some content on another site that has similar customers to you, posting on social media sites like Facebook, or even creating videos for YouTube. This will give your brand an opportunity to ensure every asset reaches the right audience, and ultimately, generates website traffic.
Creating brand awareness and getting new business are the goals of marketing for most companies, and you shouldn't be the exception to the rule. The right content distribution strategy will help you achieve this essential business goal. Create a clear outline to establish which pieces go where and let your posts do the rest of the work.
How To Write To Increase Web Traffic
As mentioned above, content plays a vital role in creating website traffic. However, audiences have become a lot more selective when choosing what type of posts they interact and engage with. If your writing is weak, your clients will be quick to move on to the next best thing. Online audiences are ruthless.
There's no secret recipe to creating the best content strategy for your brand. Yet, there are some useful pointers to write posts that will draw in buyers like bees to honey.
- Conduct Search Engine Optimization (SEO) research
Write a draft that answers your customer's questions
Keep your content easy to read
Find interesting angles to make your content stick out
Find the right times to publish your content to reach your target audience
Promote your content everywhere you can.
Make sure to keep your posts consistent and aligned with your brand voice and identity. This will boost your chances of catching your ideal customer's eye by allowing your content to resonate with them.
Once you have a clearer idea of the most appealing types of assets for your audience and best practices to create engaging and relevant content, you can get down to work. The most common actions successful brands are taking these days regarding content strategy and distribution are:
Starting a Blog
Nowadays, almost every brand under the sun is using blogging to drive its content strategy. It allows them to produce larger, more informative pieces than they can post on social media and other channels.
Jumping on the blogging bandwagon will let you build a relationship with your customers and advertise your products and services more subtly than traditional methods. Keep in mind that audiences hate feeling sold to, and are more likely to read content that seems more genuine rather than clicking on yet another display ad.
Blogs are a fantastic way of offering added value to your audience. A good blog post will give your audience a sense of accomplishment. The key here is to give them something to take with them at the end of each piece — something that will make them feel like they learned something or changed their lives for the better.
Building a Solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy
One of your goals with content is to help you rank high on the most popular search engines — the higher, the better. Internet users are more likely to click on the first few results on the first search page of Google or Bing/Yahoo. That's why you must dedicate a large part of your efforts to optimizing your pages for search engines. But what does that mean? In simple words, you want to keep tabs on the keywords your target audience is using most frequently to find products and services like yours.
Once you’ve identified the most common search terms, you can use them in your content to grab the search engine's attention. Use these keywords everywhere, from your website URL and metadata to your content and page titles.
For example, if you run a law firm, your audience may be looking for terms as obvious as "best lawyers near me," but they could also be looking for something more specific like "divorce law in California." The same is true even if you’re in a different industry like home services. Your customers may be searching for “plumbers in Lehi, Utah” or “electricians near me”. These would be keywords or phrases you would want to try and rank for.
Keep an eye on all the possibilities by using tools like Google Trends. This will help you learn the most used keywords in a specific period regarding a particular topic. Also, make sure to keep your entries relevant and provide a top-notch user experience.
Search engines take these factors into account when ranking sites. When in doubt, hire an expert to create a robust SEO strategy that will give you an edge over your competitors.
Incorporating Guest Posts
We've talked about keeping your content authoritative. However, if you're new in the traffic generation game, having a "guest star" in any (or all) of your channels will give your content a little extra value. If you publish a post by an influential personality in the industry, you'll generate more credibility. What's more, their endorsement may help you draw some of their followers to your platform.
Create an Engaging Podcast
There are several reasons why starting a podcast is a great idea. To start, they’re an excellent tool to generate website traffic, as they provide your audience with easy-to-consume information they can bring with them anywhere they want. Creating a successful podcast may seem like a ton of work. However, you just need to follow a few simple steps to keep your audience coming back for more:
- Come up with an exciting theme
Create episodes that will encourage your customers to keep on listening and looking forward to the next episode
Create an RSS feed on your site to distribute your podcast
Share snippets of your episodes on social media
Optimize your site to make it easier to find
Submit your podcast to different directories
Be consistent with the times and dates you upload episodes
Get creative with the episode names (but not so creative your audience won't know what the episode will be about)
Create feedback mechanisms to keep the conversation alive
Share the mic with an authoritative guest speaker
The beauty about podcasts is that they also lead to other pieces of content. You can do a 20 minute podcast live with video, edit down for an audio episode, write a blog post about it, and create social media tidbits to distribute. That's 20 minutes of your time for 4 pieces of content.
Where To Distribute Content
As you probably already know, there's no use in generating unique content if you share it with your audience in all the wrong places. Identifying the best channels for your assets will ensure they reach the right people and increase the odds of your ideal customers visiting your site. Here are the leading platforms you can take advantage of when looking to increase website traffic:
Social Media
Most people are on social media nowadays. The average person spends over 17 hours a week scrolling through their feeds. If placing your content on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube, and others won't get more web traffic, we don't know what will.
Make sure to keep your social media profiles consistent on all of the channels. With the vast number of users on these platforms, you want to make sure your audience knows they're interacting with the right one.
To increase identity proof, make sure to provide as much information as possible and keep your profile as complete as possible. Add links to your website and other social media channels so your audience can quickly jump from one to another.
As for your social media content strategy, try keeping things as organic as possible. Remember people tend to dislike pay ads, so use your brand's natural voice to share valuable entries and build a relationship with your audience. You can automate some of your posts, but make sure to keep your account human by responding to your audience in the comments and engaging with them.
Try posting unique content on every platform. Mirroring your posts might come off as lazy and won't give your followers a reason to follow you on each and every one of your networks. Instead, use the platform's native format to produce creative and unique entries.
Email Blasts
Email is a great way to reach out to your customers and entice them to visit your site. It allows you to send specific messages and implement a clear call to action to tell your audience exactly what you need from them. Optimize your email campaigns by:
- Providing only relevant information
Offering exclusive rewards for certain actions (e.g., visiting your site)
Keeping your emails responsive and mobile-friendly
Customizing your message to make it feel more personal
Ensuring all buttons work properly
Paid Ads
Most users are not particularly fond of ads that look too “salesy,” but a lot of platforms like Google and Facebook keep advertising as subtle as possible. While they do need to disclose when a post is sponsored, they can make it look pretty much like any other post in a user's feed. Paid ads have many advantages, such as:
- Allowing you to show your brand to a larger audience
Driving relevant traffic to your website
Allowing you to target a particular audience
Letting you track and measure results
There are two types of paid ads you can buy: pay per click (PPC) and pay per impression (PPI). The former will charge you a fee every time a customer clicks on it. The latter will charge you based on how many times your ad's been displayed.
To learn more check out this Beginners Guide to Paid Advertising
Webinars
Webinars and masterclasses are all the rage right now — and with good reason! They are online events with audiovisual components hosted and broadcasted by you to a specific group. Webinars allow you to position your brand as an authority on a particular subject. Not only are they helpful to your audience, but they also help you attract more leads.
Content offers like these, also known as lead magnets, let you interact with your audience. The added value provided will often encourage them to visit your site and make further purchases. To determine if creating a webinar is the right move, you'll need to make a detailed evaluation of your niche and approach it from a fresh and unique angle.
The best practices on how to create a webinar are:
- Settling on a particular idea
Handpicking your speakers
Selecting the correct format for your topic and your audience
Creating a visual presentation that helps your audience
Choosing the right platform to host the webinar
Keeping in mind all technical considerations
Prepping your space to avoid distractions and interruptions
Being early
Having a plan B for every aspect that could go wrong
Doing a test run before the event
You can also look to focus your webinars around other pieces of content to help cross-promote. For example, if you wrote a blog post or eBook that you are proud of, you could do a webinar to help get that other content in the eyes of more people.
Summary
No business can survive in the digital era without website traffic. Without a constant flow of visitors, your site cannot generate sales and won't produce any profits. Luckily, several proven methods exist to create a content strategy that will entice followers across different platforms to visit your site.
Need help with your lead generation and website management? Scorpion can provide your company with marketing services and technology that will put you ahead of the curve and help your business thrive.
Our team will build you a great website, create content, and setup advertising to keep the website traffic and leads coming into your business. Get started with Scorpion today.
