5 Best Ways to Increase Website Traffic
So, after weeks or months of hard work, your website is finally online – and it’s a thing of beauty. Everything seems great – the design is gorgeous and user-friendly, every button and link work perfectly, and the whole website experience just feels right. You really feel like your website reflects your brand image and business goals.
But, what now? What good is a great website if there is no one to appreciate its charm? To read your blog, listen to your podcast, or buy your product? To unlock the full potential of your website and reap all the benefits, you need to increase your website traffic.
Think of your website as an island – a tropical paradise with beaches and fruity cocktails, waiting for eager visitors to come and enjoy the party. As it’s surrounded by water, there are many ways your party guests can reach their destination – they can take a direct commercial flight, or they can ride the waves on a jet ski. Each of these journeys has its own advantages and weak points, but they all have the same final destination.
In this article, I’ll be going over different methods you can increase traffic and various tools you can use to make this quest easier.
SEO & Google Adwords
SEO or Search Engine Optimization refers to activities that improve your website’s visibility on organic search engine results. As Google ranks all search results by their relevance to a particular search, SEO is all about finding the right keywords, using them to create quality content, and matching them to a prospective customer’s search terms.
Simply put, we use SEO to improve our web content and achieve a better position on non-paid Google search results. Going back to our island analogy, SEO would be a giant cruise boat that has the potential to bring thousands or even millions of visitors to your island.
That was most certainly the case with Maldives traveler, a tourism company that increased the number of daily website visits by 40% through a strategic SEO approach and extensive keyword research. Their example really shows you how a dedicated marketing team can do wonders for your website traffic with nothing but SEO.
To help you create and manage SEO campaigns, Google Analytics is the best place to start. In addition to providing you with many useful stats and traffic data, Analytics also gives you some great keyword advice. If you’re looking for some more help, the Keyword Tool may also be a useful device to have.
Social Media Ads
Think of social media advertising as an airplane full of people who already bought a ticket to your island. What I mean by this in advertising terms is that people who clicked on your ad are already interested in what you have to offer, and are coming to your website to learn more. With advanced targeting options, social media advertising gives you a chance to reach the right people at the right time, increasing your chances of attracting your target audience and improve traffic. Combine this with a good creative solution, and you have a great marketing channel to experiment with and optimize to achieve the best results.
A Swedish-based startup called Sellpy found a lot of success with Facebook advertising. By careful targeting with Facebook’s custom audiences feature, they managed to double their number of registered users and lower their acquisition cost by 29 percent. A great example how a detailed approach to advertising, combined with testing and understanding your audience can yield impressive results.
To achieve the best results and make the most out of Facebook and Instagram, you don’t have to look further than the Facebook Business Manager. Both of these networks use the same platform with a lot of settings, ad variations, and targeting options. Each social network has its own advertising platform, so for example, for Linkedin ads, you can use Linkedin Marketing Solutions.
Email Marketing & Direct Messaging
In our island analogy, we can think of email marketing and similar forms of direct messaging as jet skis. By sending a well-constructed marketing email to a prospective customer, you’re sending them a jet ski and a personal invitation to your party. It requires a bit more work, but feels more personal and can create a stronger relationship with the brand and provide you a loyal customer for years to come.
The Pajama Program, a non-profit organization, uses email marketing to raise as much as $1,000 per email. Their emails are short, focused, and use vivid images and creative copy to get their message across. Another success story comes from Brickworkz LLC in Richmond. Its owner, Brian Korte creates a fascinating custom LEGO structure and uses email marketing to improve his business further.
In terms of creating great email solutions and managing your content, MailChimp is certainly one of the world’s leading platforms. Once you get the hang of it, you can make creative emails and deliver them to your contacts in no time. The emails are very customizable, providing you with some great design and content options so you can really leave an impression and achieve the best results.
Social Media Management
Not to be confused with social media advertising, social media management refers to your brand’s presence on social networks. Unlike advertising, social media management means that you have an active page on several social networks while providing your followers with creative content. This way, you build a loyal audience that keeps coming back to your page to discover some new interesting information, which in term results in increased website traffic.
In our island analogy, your social media fans are like parachuters – they arrive on your island in thousands, one by one, when they feel like it.
Small businesses find a lot of success in the field of social media management. For example, Cupcake Royale, a cupcake bakery with several locations in Seattle, takes their social media very seriously. This results in some great achievements – their Facebook page looks impressive, and they have more than 60,000 followers. Just taking a glance at some of their well-designed posts shows you how a creative approach can do wonders for your brand image and drive people to your website.
Another great example comes from The Grilled Cheese Truck, a business that uses Facebook to update their fans on their trucks’ location, as well as share beautiful photos that make our mouths water.
When it comes to managing several social media accounts with one tool, I can’t think of a better choice than Hootsuite. It allows you to take care of all your pages and schedule content in one convenient dashboard, while also responding to messages and brand mentions. Analytics reports are also a sweet feature, as they allow you to track campaigns and find out what’s working and what isn’t.
Influencer Marketing
Finally, we have influencer marketing – a luxury yacht that carries an influential person to your island, along with some of his or her loyal followers. The great thing about influencer marketing is that it works in a more subtle way than other methods on this list. When done properly, influencer marketing campaigns don’t even feel like marketing – your product or service is promoted in a less direct, sales-y manner, and the influencer’s reputation gives you credibility and media coverage.
A great example of influencer marketing is one from RESCUE Remedy – a company focused on the production and distribution of natural remedies. To increase brand awareness and promote their range of products, they used influential bloggers who shared their personal stories about relieving stress and offered promo coupons in their posts. The campaign yielded more than 130 million social media impressions and more than 6,000 website clicks.
One of the best tools for influencer marketing is Buzzsumo. It can help you identify influencers in your field of expertise and filter by location, authority, reach and engagement. You can follow them on the platform, get some useful information about their online activity, and you can engage with them directly. Traacker is also a great influencer marketing tool that lets you organize your influencer campaigns and collect valuable data to improve your business.
Final Word
Even though it requires a lot of dedication and knowledge, building a quality website is just the beginning of your digital business journey. Getting people to come to your website and keep visiting it on a regular basis is a more complicated task that calls for a great amount of analysis and effort. But, don’t worry – it pays off.
Although all of these channels have their advantages and formulas for success, there is no doubt that combining them achieves the best results. Having an all-around online presence can do wonders for your brand, while driving website traffic and, ultimately, increasing profit. Consider your business needs and start with at least one of these channels.
As social media presence has already become a necessity in most Western societies, I recommend starting from there. Create a Facebook page and slowly start growing your community. As the word about your business begins to spread, you can follow this up with some more social media accounts and advertising activities. Eventually, you will be able to use all of these channels to increase website traffic and brand awareness.
If you need help with any of these digital marketing channels, you can always get in touch. I will be more than happy to accompany you on your journey and help you achieve your business goals while learning about digital marketing every step of the way.
