Learn 18 effective ways to increase your website traffic so you can turn that traffic into paying customers.
1. On-page SEO
Optimizing your site content for search engines is an incredibly valuable and highly effective practice for boosting organic traffic. There are a variety of SEO tactics you can use on each of your website pages to increase their rank in search engines and drive more traffic to your site. This includes producing high-quality content that your audience is searching for, and writing concise meta descriptions for your pages. If you’re new to SEO, read this blog post to learn more about SEO basics.
2. Target long-tail keywords
Once you have your SEO basics covered, like high-intent and popular keywords, then you can focus on targeting long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are phrases with 3 or more words that are specific to the product, service or information you are providing on your site. Long-tail keywords are often easier to rank for and tend to have higher conversion rates. A few easy, free ways to brainstorm long-tail keywords: autocomplete, the “people also ask” box, and related searches suggestion box on Google.
Source: (kinsta.com)
3. Make sure your site is fast & responsive
According to a 2018 study, 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones. Responsive web design will allow both desktop and mobile visitors to move through your site easily, which contributes to improved user experience. Further, the responsiveness of your site has a direct impact on SEO because Google looks at how your website appears on mobile before indexing and ranking it. Page speed can also indirectly affect your SEO rankings due to increased bounce rate (i.e. website visitors are likely to leave your site if it takes more than a few seconds to load). A few easy ways you can improve page speed: pick a good hosting provider and optimize your images.
Source: (websitesetup.org), (kinsta.com)
4. Answer Questions on Q&A Websites
Q&A websites like Quora and Ask Reddit are essentially organic traffic machines. These sites are an easy and free option for getting your business greater online visibility. Start with active participation, like answering people’s questions on topics related to your industry. It’s important to be relevant and helpful without sounding salesy. Q&A sites are also a great way to track customer behavior. These sites provide a window into the experiences and opinions of your target market and allow you to ‘listen’ to chatter about your business or brand.
Source: (neilpatel.com), (websitesetup.org)
5. Link internally
Internal links are links to other pages on your site. Linking internally to other relevant content on your website boosts your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines, and increases the likelihood of conversions. Simply stated: internal links encourage visitors to dig deeper and stay on your website for a longer period of time. .
6. Backlinking
A backlink is a link to your website from another domain. Quality backlinks from authoritative websites or complementary businesses will help to drive qualified traffic to your website. Additionally, backlinks from trusted sites will also give you a significant boost from Google, which leads to higher rankings, and subsequently higher site traffic.
7. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is when you write a post for a website other than your own in return for a backlink to your site. Securing a guest blog on a reputable site will help to improve your site’s SEO, increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. Make sure to reach out to sites within your niche or industry in order to get your content in front of readers that are in your target audience. And of course, make sure that your post is valuable, helpful and well written!
8. Create Content That People Want to Share (and Link To)
People will want to share or link to content that is well-researched, relevant, trustworthy, and genuinely helpful. In other words, your content needs to provide value to your followers. Shareable content includes quotable copy, compelling images, engaging videos, infographics, and more. The visual elements of your content are especially important for making content shareable and easier to repurpose (see tip #10) on social media.
9. Add Social Share Buttons to Your Site
Once you’ve created interesting content, make it easier than ever for your readers to share that content by adding social share buttons to the page. You may want to consider adding a call to action in your blog post to encourage people to share.
10. Repurpose content
Repurposing content is the definition of working smarter, not harder. If you have high-performing, valuable content that already exists on your website, you can repurpose this content on other channels and in other formats to drive even more traffic to your site. For example, take a blog post and repurpose it into a podcast, a YouTube video, or multiple posts on Pinterest. If you have multiple blog posts with related content, you can turn this into a content offer in the form of a detailed E-Book.
11. Optimize old content
Speaking of working smarter, updating old content is an easy way to boost site traffic, and is a lot faster than writing entirely new content. Optimizing old content, or historical optimization, helps to improve your SEO ranking because Google prefers updated and new content (“fresh” content) over old, stale content. It will also improve your click-through-rate, as people prefer reading content that has been published most recently.
Source: (getcredo.com)
12. Email marketing
Many businesses are so focused on attracting new customers with content marketing that they forget about email marketing! Email marketing is an inexpensive, powerful tool for building relationships with prospects, leads, and current customers by placing valuable content directly in their inbox. You can leverage segmentation and automation tools to improve the relevance and timeliness of your campaigns. If you need to grow your email list, provide gated content offers and easy newsletter sign-up forms on your website.
Source: (wordstream.com), (blog.hubspot.com)
13. Social media
Organic social media marketing is critical for your business because it lets you develop a brand presence, attract new customers, and nurture your audience into brand loyalists. Your social media strategy should use a variety of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. In addition to posting directly on these social media platforms, you can use Instagram Stories, live video, IGTV, Facebook Messenger, and hashtags to increase visibility. It’s important to engage with & interact with your followers too of course 😉
Source: (compose.ly), (blog.hubspot.com)
14. Paid search and social advertising
Once you’ve reached a good rhythm with your content and optimization, you may want to consider paid advertising on social media using highly targeted campaigns to reach (and hopefully convert!) your ideal customers. You can target users by interest, lookalike audiences, or people who have already visited your website. Some examples of paid advertising include announcing a new product or service, gated content promotion as a form of lead generation, and time-sensitive offerings – all of which can drive immediate traffic to your website.
Source: (shopify.com)
15. Promote content in relevant online communities
Online communities like Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and Reddit are a great place to find your target audience. For example, join a few Facebook groups related to your niche, and interact with the group and its members in a sincere way. Reddit also has a large and active community – there’s probably a subreddit related to your niche where you can answer questions and participate in the conversation surrounding your industry. Try to avoid linking to your website unless you are sharing genuinely helpful content.
Source: (kinsta.com)
16. Google My Business
Creating a Google My Business is a free way to improve local SEO and online visibility. Google My Business listings allow potential customers to see your business’ name, address and phone number, as well as photos of your business, online reviews, company description and more. A complete listing generates an average of 7x more clicks than empty ones by providing all of the information a potential customer needs to make a decision.
Source: (thrivehive.com)
17. Syndicate Your Content
Content syndication is done by republishing content on other sites, such as Medium and Business Insider, in order to reach a broader audience. Syndicated content helps to increase your reach and brand awareness by getting your content in front of a different audience (who may not have known it existed otherwise!). Medium specifically is a site with user-generated content and a highly engaged audience that suggests articles based on the user’s reading habits. Medium can help send consistent traffic back to your site, and even has a dashboard to show how your articles are performing.
Source: (kinsta.com)
18. Host a webinar
Webinars are an excellent way to share your expertise, team up with other professionals in your industry, and target your audience without geographical restrictions. In tandem with an effective promotional social media campaign, webinars can be a great way to increase traffic to your website. Be sure to send an email reminder reminder a week ahead of time, in addition to a “last chance to register” reminder the day before the webinar. The presentation can then be archived or uploaded to your YouTube channel for later viewing, and can be promoted on your social media after the fact.
Source: (wordstream.com)
Source: (websitesetup.org)
