5 Ways to Increase Website Traffic
September 19, 2018
Let's talk about how to increase your website traffic. Maybe you put up a website for your business and thought you were all set. Not true. It's important today to have a website, it's what is expected. However, it is not enough to just have a website. If you are not getting traffic to your site, what's the point?
Today you can get your business in front of many eyes online. What an awesome opportunity! So, how do you take advantage of it and bring in good relevant traffic?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of getting your website ranked in the search engines. When someone does a Google search, your website needs to show up on the first couple of pages (preferably page 1). Otherwise, most searchers will never see it.
So, what's the solution? You will need to do a lot of SEO work. It can be a complicated and time-consuming process, however, it is an investment in the health of your business. You will need to learn how to do SEO or hire someone who is knowledgeable in it. You can check out Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide to learn all the basics.
Search engine optimization comes down to two main things - having great content that can be found and having good relevant sites linking back to yours. And these go hand in hand. If you have awesome content, other sites will want to link back to yours. Of course, there are a lot of other things to consider while getting your website SEO friendly. However, these two elements have consistently remained important.
Increase Website Traffic through Paid Advertising
While you are working on getting your site ranked, it might be helpful to do some paid advertising. You can do this through Google or Facebook, the two main players. You will want to learn how to strategically write ads to get them shown to the right people. Otherwise you can waste a lot of money. The goal is not to just increase website traffic; it is to bring in more visitors that will want what you offer. For example, if you sell products for dog owners, you need to get your ads/website in front of people who own a dog.
Social Media Presence
It seems that everyone today is on social media. Wherever you go, people are attached to their phones and "checking in" with their social media accounts. If you don't have a presence there for your business, you could be losing out on a lot of prospective customers.
Make sure you determine where your market is - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or Instagram. As I have been stressing, if you are not reaching your target market with your promotion efforts, you're wasting your time and money.
Set up accounts on your preferred social media networks, and begin to post to those accounts reguarly. Work to build up a following by offering consistent, fresh, helpful information. Some of the people I follow on Facebook provide healthy recipes and other helpful information. If they share their ideas and tips on a regular basis, guess whose website I am likely to visit when I need something? People need to see and hear from you over and over so that they become familiar with you and begin to trust you. Sharing some knowledge and helpful hints can go a long way.
Email Marketing
You may want to include an email newseletter signup form on your website. This way you can capture the contact information of those who visit you and are interested in what you have to offer. Be consistent with sending out emails (weekly, monthly) and offer some helpful information to your market. You can include links in the email to encourage your readers to come back to your website and see new products and content you have published. Just as retail stores offer coupons to get you in the store, you want to get people to return to your website on a regular basis. This keeps your business fresh on their minds, so you will be the one they come to when they need to purchase a product or service.
Offline Promotion
There is a lot of competition online for almost any business you can think of. It may help you to do some networking locally and hand out business cards to encourage your offline contacts to visit your website. If you can become known in your local area as an expert in your field, it will go along ways in bringing targeted traffic to your website as well as increasing your sales. Think about joining some networking groups or speak at events where your market will be. For example, if you have recently opened up a vegetarian restaurant, it would be great to secure a speaking engagement at a local vegfest.
Ready to Get Started?
These are all ways you can increase website traffic and get the word out to your market that you are open for business. The best way to approach these strategies is to choose 2-3 of them, put them into practice, and see if they deliver results for you. If not, try some others.