Ask any marketer what their top priority is and they’ll likely tell you “more customers”. What comes after customers on almost every marketer’s list is more traffic. So in a sense, all marketers want to know one thing – how to increase traffic to their website. Why? So they have more visitors to convert into customers! Neither of these should come as a surprise. Thankfully, there a plenty of ways to increase the amount of inbound traffic to your site. We’re going to explore 25 of them in this post. Better yet, some of these methods are 100% free!
Advertising is a Great Way to Increase Traffic to Your Website
This one is painfully obvious, so we’ll dive into it first and get it out of the way. Paid search, social media, and display advertising are all great ways of increasing traffic to your website. Advertising is also a surefire means to build your brand and get your website in front of the right people. It is essential that you adjust your paid strategies to best suit your goals. Do you just want more traffic or are you also looking to increase conversions? Each paid channel has its own pros and cons. That being said, you need to carefully assess your objectives before you reach for your credit card.
Is your primary goal is to increase sales by increasing traffic to your website? Then you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your strategy. Yes, the competition for these keywords is both fierce and expensive. However, the payoffs can most definitely be worth it.
Get Active on Social Media
Simply producing great content and hoping that the right people find it just won’t cut it. In order to increase traffic to your website, you have to become proactive and get your content out there in different ways. One of the best ways to do this is to promote your content via social media. Twitter is great for short, witty links. LinkedIn on the other hand is great in terms of personalized search results and works wonders in B2B niches. If you’re a B2C business, then you should look to image-heavy platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.
Mix Things Up to Increase Traffic to Your Website
Sadly, there is no magic formula for content marketing success, regardless of what some might lead you to believe. It is essential that you vary the length and format of your content in order to appeal to different types of readers. Mix in shorter, news-based pieces with long-form content as well as video, infographics, and data-driven pieces for maximum impact.
Craft Irresistible Headlines
There’s no getting around it. Headlines are without question one of the most important parts of your content. Without a stellar headline, even the most effective and complete blog post will go unread. This is why it is essential that you master the craft of writing phenomenal headlines. Top-tier bloggers brainstorm upward of twenty headlines before finally settling on one that will increase traffic to their website. On that note, think carefully about your headline before you click “publish.”
Master On-Page SEO to Increase Traffic to Your Website
Are you one of the suckers who think that SEO is dead? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you couldn’t be more wrong. SEO is alive and well!
Optimizing your content for search engines is still a valuable and worthwhile practice. Are you making the most of your image alt text? Are you creating internal links to new content? What about your meta descriptions? Optimizing for on-page SEO doesn’t have to take ages. Furthermore, it can help increase traffic to your website.
Target Long-Tail Keywords
Once you have your high-intent and popular keyword bases covered, it’s time to target the long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords make up the majority of web searches. This means that you’re seriously missing out if you’re not targeting them as part of your paid search or SEO efforts.
Start Guest Blogging to Increase Traffic to Your Website
Just like SEO, a lot of people will say that guest blogging is dead. Again, these people are wrong…dead wrong. Securing a guest post on a reputable site can increase traffic to your site and help build your brand into the overall package. However, it is important to note that standards for guest blogging have drastically changed as of late. The primary change is in how search engines treat spammy tactics. If you overly employ spammy tactics, you’ll likely face a stiff penalty. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Invite Others to Guest Blog on Your Site
Just like most things in life, guest blogging is a two-way street. In addition to posting content to other blogs, you should invite others in your niche to blog on your site! They’re likely to share and link to their guest article, which will likely bring new readers and increase traffic to your website. However, you need to ensure that the quality of their work is up to par. Furthermore, make sure it is genuine new content and free of any spammy links because Google is cracking down on low-quality guest blogging.
Chase Down Referral Traffic
Attempting to persuade other sites to link back to you can be a tedious and time-intensive process. Instead, you can save yourself a lot of time and just write content that is worthy of linking to…it really isn’t that complicated. Get it? Got it? Good!
Post Content to LinkedIn to Increase Traffic to Your Blog
LinkedIn has evolved into much more than a means to landing a new job. The world’s largest professional social network is a valuable publishing platform in its own right. This means that you should be posting content to LinkedIn on a regular basis. If you do, you can increase traffic to your website and increase your status within your industry. This is especially true if you have a moderate to large following.
Implement Schema Microdata
Incorporating schema (or other microdata formats) isn’t a surefire way to increase traffic to your site on its own. However, it will make it easier for search engine crawlers to find and index your pages. Another benefit to using schema for SEO is that it can lead to better rich snippets, which can then improve your click-through rates in most cases.
Develop a Strong and Dense Internal Linking Structure
There’s no getting around it, backlinks matter. However, your internal linking structure is just as important. When you create and publish content, make sure to keep a watchful eye out for opportunities to create internal links. Not only does this help with SEO, but it also results in a better overall user experience and we all know that a strong user experience is a key factor to increasing traffic to your website.
Interview Industry Thought Leaders
Believe it, or not, but interviews aren’t just for the marquee names in your respective industry. You’d be amazed by how many people are willing to connect with you – all you have to do is ask! Send out emails to thought leaders in your industry and ask for a chance to open a dialogue. When you successfully land and conduct a professional interview, make sure to publish it on your blog! I mean, what’s the point of scoring an interview with an industry thought leader if you don’t plan on showcasing it for the world to read!?
Don’t Forget About Email Marketing!
Most businesses are focused on bringing in new customers via content marketing and ignore the traditional methods. Email marketing is one of these traditional methods that many businesses overlook. Even a moderately successful email blast can yi8eld a significant uptick in traffic. However, you need to ensure that you don’t bombard your email ist with countless emails. They don’t need to know – and likely don’t really care – about every minor update. Furthermore, you cannot forget about word-of-mouth marketing. This is especially true when it comes from people who already enjoy your product or service.
Make Sure Your Site is Responsive
Let’s be honest here, how often do you surf the web on your smartphone. That’s what I thought. Seeing how the majority of web activity happens on mobile devices, it is essential that your website is mobile responsive. Even if you have the most basic of websites, you still need to ensure that it is accessible and comfortable to view across all devices, including smartphones with smaller screens.
Make Sure that Your Site is Fast to Increase Traffic to Your Website
When was the last time that you waited more than 10 seconds for a site to load…how about 15…or 20 seconds? Yea, me neither. If your site takes forever to load, your bounce rate will skyrocket. It is critical that you ensure that your entire site is as technically optimized as possible. This includes image file sizes, page structure, and the functionality of third-party plugins. In short, the faster your site, the better. If your site feels a bit sluggish, head on over to Google’s PageSpeed Insights. This helpful tool runs a diagnostic and provides some insight as to what could be slowing your site down.
Foster a Sense of Community
People want to share their thoughts and weigh in on topics. In order to accommodate this, you can build a community into your site. This is a great way to start a conversation with your audience. Implement a robust commenting system through third-party options such as Facebook comments or Disqus. Once you set up your community, don’t forget to manage it to ensure that minimum standards are met.
Make Yourself Heard in the Comments Section
Odds are that you visit at least a few sites that are relevant to your business on a regular basis. If so, why not join in on the conversation? Commenting doesn’t always provide an immediate influx of referral traffic. However, making a name for yourself by providing insightful commentary is a superb means to gain exposure. This can also result in an increase in traffic to your site. No matter what you do, just as you would with guest posting, quality and relevance are essential. You need to engage with other people in your niche and avoid dropping spam links on unrelated sites.
Comb Through Your Analytics Data
Good old Google Analytics is an invaluable source of data for just about every possible aspect of your site. Whether you’re researching your most popular pages to visitor demographics. It is essential that you keep a close eye on your analytics data, and use the associated information to inform your promotional and content strategies. Furthermore, you also want to pay attention to which posts and pages are popular. Inspect visitor data to see how, where, and when your site traffic is coming through.
Get Active on Social Media to Increase Traffic to Your Website
It isn’t enough to just share content through social channels – you need to actively take part in the community, too! Do you have a Twitter account? If so, you should join in a group discussion using relevant hashtags. Is your audience leaving comments on your Facebook posts? Then you best answer their questions and engage with your audience. Nothing turns people away faster than using social media as a broadcast channel – you need to use social media as it was intended and actually interact with your fans.
Submit Your Content to Aggregator Sites
*Disclaimer: Whatever you do, do NOT spam Reddit and hope to hit the jackpot of referral traffic…it just won’t happen.* Members of communities such as Reddit are extremely savvy to spam disguised as legitimate links. However, it doesn’t hurt to submit links that these audiences will genuinely enjoy every now and then. Select a relevant subreddit, submit your content, and watch the traffic pour in.
Incorporate Video into Your Content Strategy
Text-based content is fine and dandy. However, video can be a valuable asset in both attracting new visitors and making your site more engaging. Data shows that information retention is far higher for visual material than it is for text. This means that video marketing is an excellent way to grab ahold of your audience’s attention and boost traffic to your website at the same time.
Research Your Competition to Increase Traffic to Your Website
You’re at a huge disadvantage if you don’t use tools like BuzzSumo to check out what your competitors are doing. These services aggregate the social performance of specific sites and content to provide you with a quick overview of what tops are clicking with readers. More importantly, these tools also show you what sort of content is killing it on social media. Find out what people are reading (and talking about), and mimic that style of content to increase traffic to your website.
Closing Thoughts
Well, that about does it for this post. If you’ve got your own tips for increasing traffic to your website, let me know. You can reach me via email at andrew@andrewroche99.com.
