How to Increase Your Website Traffic

The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.It’s the number one question that every website owner wants a quick answer to. How do you get more visitors to your website? There are so many websites offering the same content out there. Your company’s website is often the first port of call for a prospective customer to learn about you, but standing out amongst the competition and outranking them can be a colossal challenge. Getting increasing web traffic each month is a struggle, so here are some excellent ways to drive visitors to your site.

Keep Blogging

Blogs have come along way from their inception in the early days of the Internet. No longer do they pose as diary entries but are used to aid website visitors with various problems. The primary marketing purpose of a blog is to attract new users to your website from search engines. Keep a regular blog schedule so you’re constantly adding new posts and content for new and existing website users. Make sure each blog post targets a unique set of keywords to lure people from search engines.

Some people struggle with content ideas but there really are an infinite amount. Your blog can provide: ‘how to’ guides, whitepapers, industry news and trends, infographics, helpful lists, FAQ and much more. Use this blog topic generator to formulate ideas.

Each post must be optimised to make it easy for search engines to find. Use relevant keyword phrases that your target audience is likely to search for on search engines. Services such as Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and Moz Keyword Explorer can help with keyword planning. Ensure you use keywords in headings, throughout the copy and the metadata. Don’t keyword-spam though, as search engines will penalise your website.

Once you’ve made a blog post, talk about it! Post it across your social media channels (don’t forget to use hashtags) and your newsletter. Give users the option to subscribe to your blog so they get an email whenever you publish a new one. The more people read it, the more likely search engines will recommend it.

Use Social Media Effectively

We live in a time where if your company does not have social media, do they even exist? Your social media accounts are an invaluable way to boost traffic. Ensure your description/bio is concise, clear and describes accurately what your company does. It should also have a link to your website.

Find out when your audience most actively uses social media and post during these times. On Facebook, you can see this information under ‘Page insights’. Encourage your followers to turn your notifications on so all your posts show up in their feed. How often you post is something that varies from sector and company, but at least once or twice a week.

Don’t even bother posting on social media without visual content. Humans are visual learners so help their brains with images and videos. Posts with relevant images get 94% more views than those without. Posts with visual content are also 40% more likely to be shared.

Post a range of content – company updates, industry news, behind-the-scenes work, upcoming events, holiday greetings, new products, customer reviews and testimonials, staff parties and memes. Posting the same kind of content will get stale and predictable. You need a variety to appeal to different users’ preferences.

Social media management also involves customer service. Promptly and politely answer any questions that come in. Engage with other users’ comments on your profiles by liking and replying to them. This helps build a personal relationship between potential customers and your business, encouraging them to visit your website. If you receive a comment from a user dissatisfied with your product or service, talk to them directly and try to move the conversation out of the public's view.

Optimise Your Website for Search Engines

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is what is responsible for websites appearing on that exclusive first page of Google and other search engine’s results. Search engines want to help users as quickly as possible by serving up a list of the best websites. They will evaluate websites based on a series of unpublished and ever-changing criteria, which means you have to make your SEO endeavours on-going.

SEO is a mammoth task that encompasses a lot of different areas, so this blog post will not be exhaustive of all of them. There are two kinds of primary SEO - technical SEO (pertaining to website development and site speed) and SEO for content (images, copy and metadata). 

For technical SEO, do the following:

• Use https for security
• Have a sitemap and robot.txt file in place
• Ensure your website is indexed
• Have a SSL certificate for your website
• Set up Google Analytics
• No broken links
• Small image files
• Ensure website is mobile friendly
• Minimise loading speed
• Use canonical tags avoid being penalised for duplicating content on different pages.

For SEO content, do the following:

• Correct title and header tags
• Use relevant metadata
• Optimise images for search engines
• Do a content audit and ensure content is relevant and readable
• Avoid duplicate content
• Remove outdated and irrelevant content
• Avoid optimising different pages for the same keywords (keyword cannibalisation)
• Regularly updated your website with new content
• Get backlinks from high authority trusted websites.

Send Useful Marketing Emails

Your email list is a valuable source that is underused by many. Email marketing is still a very important tool that you can leverage to keep people returning to your website. Send out frequent emails about company updates newsletters, welcome emails, new product releases and promotions, product education, customer surveys, webinar invitations, contests, last chance notifications, customer reviews and testimonials, requests to customer reviews, case studies, referral incentives and more.

Segment your audience to provide more tailored and relevant messaging. Do you have business and consumer clients? You wouldn’t send them the same messages. You may want to give repeat customers a loyalty discount. Perhaps you want to re-engage those who haven’t purchased from you in over a year. Send an email to people whose subscriptions expire next month, reminding them to subscribe again for the year. Users are significantly more likely to engage with an email that’s more relevant to them than a blanket one that goes out to everyone. 

Use Paid Adverts

As social media websites and search engines keep moving to limit the reach a free post or listing can attain, the most effective method to attract huge amounts of visibility is with paid adverts. It’s much easier than praying one of your posts will become a magical viral post. 

Advertise only on the platforms that your target audience use. It’s unlikely you’ll get much traction using TikTok to reach middle-aged businessmen. Use messaging and imagery that enjoy and will capture their attention. Make your targeting align with your previous customer data, using demographics, interest, behaviour and email list and other lookalike data.

You don’t need to invest an enormous sum of money into paid adverts. Start small to test and increase it when the algorithm learns which audiences convert best.

Third-Party Websites

Get your website listed on relevant third-party directory websites. Many people use these kinds of websites to learn about new businesses so it’s an easy way to get fresh web traffic. The third-party websites could be industry-specific or review services like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Websites linking back to yours will also give your SEO a helping hand as it makes your website appear more trustworthy.

Verify Your Business on Google

Verify your business on Google and you will have more control about how your information is presented across the company's products, including your website, contact details, opening hours and services. It’ll improve how you appear in Google searches, e.g. listing your company as a local business on Google Maps. You’ll also get access to Google’s search data and receive ideas on how to improve your website. 

Websites are not something you build and then leave ticking along in the background on their own. They require constant attention and frequent updates. Keep a close eye on website data and see how you can not just increase your web traffic but how you can extend the length of time users spend on your website. Websites are often the first instance people learn about your business and a poor or unclear website will make them leave for one of your competitors. First impressions really do count so make sure your website is easy to navigate and meets users’ expectations.

To find out just how effective your website is, get your FREE web audit from Primeria.