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Best 22 Ways to Boost Traffic to Your Website

Best 22 Ways to Boost Traffic to Your Website

Saturday September 19, 2020,

10 min Read

“More customers” is the top-ranked item on the wish list of every business owner and marketer. A wish for “more web site traffic” comes in a close second. This makes sense when you consider that increased web visits mean more buyers.


Fortunately, there are several ways to increase the number of website visits. Today we are going to look at a few of them.


1. Advertise


Advertising is an obvious choice, but consider carefully which method will work best before you open your wallet. Excellent advertising venues include paid searches, display advertising and social media advertising, but determine your specific goals before you choose a particular method. Do you simply want more traffic or are you looking for a higher conversion rate? For example, if you want your increased traffic to bring in more sales, you need to use high commercial intent keywords in your paid search plan. The fight for these search terms is intense, and they can be expensive. However, you may find it a worthwhile investment in exchange for a significant increase in sales. Google Ads and Bing Ads is a good start.


2. Get Social


Once you create top-notch content, you need to be proactive in getting people to notice it. Social media channels are a great way to attract attention draw people into your website. You need to understand your target audience, because the various social media channels attract different demographics. If your site offers business to business products and services, a Google+ promotion will get it into the personal search results that businesses seem to favor. On the other hand, consumers seem to follow more picture and graphic heavy sites such as Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Of course, Twitter is the best way to circulate quick witty messages along with the links you want them to click.


3. Mix Up the Content


Your website’s content should not follow a one-size-fits-all format. Readers will have different interests and time constraints, but you can appeal to as many of them possible by including articles of different lengths. Include short blasts of the latest news in blog posts alongside longer in-depth articles for people seeking more detailed information. Video, informative graphics and data-driven pieces break up a content-heavy page making it pleasing to the eye and encouraging the visitor to explore.


4. Write Intriguing Headlines


A good headline draws in a reader who might otherwise skim past important content. Become a master headline writer by trying several possibilities for each story. Writer’s at the most popular sites, such as BuzzFeed and Upworthy, will write more than 20 different headlines before choosing the one that feels right and that will draw in traffic. Once you write the headline, look it over again and tweak it if necessary before you posting the story to your site.


5.Optimize your Site


SEO remains an important method to draw hits to your page. Despite the naysayers who believe SEO is dead, optimizing your page for search engines is still a very important practice. Make the best use of your image alt text and create internal links leading to new content. Be sure to use meta descriptions. Creating on-page SEO is not time consuming, and the extra effort will go a long way to increasing your organic traffic.


6.Target Long-Tail Keywords


So you are making the best use of your high commercial intent keyword, but are you taking time to target long-tail keywords? Once consumers have run through a general, broad search for a product, they are most likely to use these longer, more descriptive phrases as they get closer to making a purchase. Make sure you are targeting the long-tail keywords suitable to your site as part of your SEO efforts or paid searches.


7. Start Guest Blogging


Guest blogging is still a viable option to promote your brand and lead readers to your website. Obviously, the standards for this practice have changed a great deal in the past 1 1/2 years meaning obviously spamming content could draw stiff penalties. True blogging still works. Once you find a guest post opening on a reputable site, create content that will inform the reader and make them want to know more about your product.


8. Have Others Guest Blog for You


Here again Google is getting tough on spammy, low-quality blogging, but inviting a person in the same field or niche to guest blog on your website can draw in new readers. Your guest will share their article and link to it in places where you do not already have a presence. Make sure these guest blogs are high quality, have unique content and do not contain any spam-promoting links.


9. Get Referral Traffic


If you create truly innovative and unique content, other websites will be drawn in and create links to yours. This is much easier and quicker than actively persuading these other site owners to link back to your website.


10.Showcase your Content on LinkedIn


LinkedIn has come a long way from its original purpose to promote professional networking and to find a new job. LinkedIn professionals now use the site to better their knowledge about specific areas. You will want to take full advantage of this popular publishing platform by regularly placing your content there. This will increase traffic to your website and increase your company’s public profile, particularly if your following is moderate or large


11.Use Schema Microdata


Make it easy for search engine bots to discover your pages and index them by using schema or another microdata format. Using schema for SEO also results in improved rich site snippets, which can lead to better click-through rates.


12. Link Internally


You can improve SEO of your site with an effective internal linking structure. This, along with back links from other sites, will improve your ranking in search results. As you are writing and creating content for your site, be on the lookout for appropriate internal links. Internal linking also improves your reader’s experience, by making the website more useful. This easy use can increase traffic and keep visitors on your site longer, potentially leading to more sales.


13. Interview Industry Leaders


Your blog will benefit from interviews with thought leaders in your industry. You will be surprised at how many of these leaders will volunteer if you request an interview. Start with an email invitation to key thinkers within your industry, talk to them and include their insight in your blog. Having a recognized name on your site will increase your credibility and draw more readers to your website. In turn, the person you interviewed will share the blog expanding your audience even farther.


14.Email Marketing Still Works


Businesses are so focused on content marketing, they overlook the value of simpler, more traditional methods such as email. An email blast is still a powerful method to attract traffic to your website. Do not overuse the email method. Potential customers will react negatively to a tidal wave of emails about small, insignificant changes in your business.


15.Make Your Site Responsive on all Platforms


Potential customers are not confined to searching the Web on desktop computers anymore. They are using small screen, mobile devices – smart phones and tablets among others. These visitors might feel inconvenienced or unwelcome if they are forced to pinch and scroll to access your site. Make your website comfortable for all users, whether they have small smart phone screens or a large monitor.


16. Optimize Technology for a Fast Web Site


No one wants to wait 30 seconds or longer for a website to load. If your page is not optimized for speedy use, your bounce rate will sky rocket. You should keep watch on the size of image files, how your pages are structured and how functional the third-party plug-ins are. Always make sure your site loads quickly. If you are using a WordPress platform here is a good article to read: 15 Easy Ways To Speed Up WordPress


17. Build Community


Use your website to spark conversations among like-minded individuals. People who follow your page are passionate or intensely interested in your area of expertise. Building a community of people with common interests is a great way to increase traffic. You may want to use third-party services such as Facebook comments or Disqus, or you could create a forum where readers can post questions. One word of caution: Monitor these posts to promote quality, inoffensive exchanges and maintain a sufficient level of decorum.


18. Use your voice in Comment Sections


Get your name out there by commenting on sites within your business niche or industry. By making informed, substantial comments on appropriate blogs, you can show you are an industry leader. This approach will not increase traffic immediately, but in time, as you are recognized, more people will be drawn to your site. Keep your comments relevant and of high quality. Engage other like-minded people, but do not spam them with unwanted links on these sites and especially not on unrelated websites and blogs. Forums to engage: DigitalPoint, TrafficPlanet & WarriorForum


19.Examine GoogleAnalytics


The best way to monitor your website’s performance is to regularly examine data from Google Analytics. This resource is invaluable because it contains information about almost every part of your site. You can find out what type of people are visiting your site or which of your pages get the most visits. The data will tell you where the traffic is coming from, as well as how they are getting to your site. Use this information to tweak your content and promotional methods.


20. Be Active on Social Media


Once you promote your content on social media such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, get into the game yourself. Participate in a Twitter group discussion with hashtags relevant to your industry. Monitor the posts on your Facebook page. If your audience is asking questions, engage them with informative answers. Otherwise, your page will have the appeal of a stationary, never changing billboard ad. Use social media to engage and interact with potential customers and website visitors.


21.Send Content to Aggregator Sites


Of course, you do not want to spam sites such as Reddit with the hopes of increasing referrals. These communities are savvy and will spot spam right away. However, every now and then, it helps to place a link on a relevant subreddit where the audience will find the information useful. Used appropriately and in moderation, this method will draw traffic to your website.


22. Know your Competition


Stay in the game by knowing what people are researching, reading and talking about. Software such as BuzzSumo lets you know what your competitors are doing. Services like these aggregate the social performance of particular websites and give you a quick view of what topics are trending with web users and what is popular on social media. Use this knowledge to include similar content on your website and increase traffic flow to your pages.