Start Driving Traffic to Your Website

Content is the undisputed king of all marketing activities, online and offline. However, producing amazing content is just one part of a marketing campaign. The logistics required to promote that content is another part. Finally, monitoring the performance of that advertised or shared content is a major part. So, we all know by now how important content is. But, do we know why it is so crucial?

The reason why we idolize good, relevant and well-performing content is because of the traffic that it brings to the business’ website. It is through these visitors that we will – hopefully – capture most of our leads and clients.

Therefore, at the end of the day, content – while still relevant in and for itself – is one of the tools we use to drive traffic to websites – and eventually, generate sales.

That is why many experts consider the traffic to a landing page or website as a crucial metric to consider when analyzing the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. Indeed, if your marketing efforts are not bringing in potential customers, then a re-evaluation of this strategy is required. Online campaigns are continuously optimized (particularly their creative and technical parts) to reach the ultimate goals of increased visits (more brand awareness) and lead generation (sales).

So, the natural question is: how do you drive traffic to a website? Let’s explore the by-now iconic tactics that every marketer should have in his or her arsenal:

Tactics That Increase Traffic

Use Social Media Channels

• Google My Business: Sharing posts on Google My Business is a great way to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. It will also help to generate organic clicks and grow your web traffic!
• Twitter: Twitter is perfect for short, catchy messages that are easy to read, resonate with the audience, and make prospective clients want to read more on your site. So, make sure to include that link in your tweet.
• Instagram:  While links are not clickable in individual Instagram posts, you can significantly leverage the channel for your e-commerce website by adding prices on visuals and direct links to your e-shop.  Moreover, it’s important to use stories and IGTV heavily to highlight the services or products that you offer and encourage people to learn more about your brand. Moreover, Instagram ads enable you to choose website traffic as a goal and you can effectively promote your site that way.
• Facebook: One of the most flexible channels to promote your business where you can choose from a variety of ad types to reach your objectives and get more visitors to your site. Facebook has a well-developed management platform with all the metrics you need to optimize your ads and ensure you know where your traffic is coming from.
• LinkedIn: Yet another channel for driving website traffic that is similar to Facebook in some ways. LinkedIn also has an advertising manager that offers many targeting options and different ways in which to attract and engage visitors.

Investing in Paid Advertising

In addition to the content that you are sharing on the social media channels that you selected in your strategy, it is recommended to use those very same channels as your advertising platforms. Paid ads that run online are a very efficient way in which to get your website promoted and reach a wider audience. For that, you’ll need to understand things like conversion rates and clicks tracking. One of the most used tools to have an in-depth view of your campaigns is Google Analytics. As the name suggests, you will be able to analyze your website visits, understand what content is most engaging by seeing which pages are most clicked on, and visited for the longest time.

There are many types of paid advertising, including:

• Display advertising: A popular ad format that uses visuals such as static banners, GIFs or animations. Many layouts are available, and the most popular use for this ad type is for re-marketing.
• SEM: By implementing Search Engine Marketing tactics, you can promote your website on search engines via Pay-Per-Click ads for example. This improves its ranking in the results page, increases visibility, brand awareness and website traffic.
• Social media: You can place different types of ads on social media channels that promote the link to your website and even use sponsored stories.
• Video ads: Another interesting ad format is a YouTube ad. It is used for remarketing purposes and to reach potential customers when they’re watching or searching for videos on YouTube.

Include a Variety of Content

• Blogs: Blogs are still the king of content. They’re informational, readable, and educational. Furthermore, websites that have a blog section are more liked by Google search engines than those that don’t.
• Infographics: infographics are very attractive. It’s a great way to catch your audience’s attention as they expect to learn something interesting from them.
• Videos: Videos can grab attention and keep that audience engaged…but not for too long! Make sure you keep them short and sweet.
• EBooks: the educational content par excellence. People read eBooks because they expect to learn something new about a specific topic. You can use them alongside infographics and short videos.
• Case studies: Sharing reliable content, such as case studies, gives your brand credibility. Use them to highlight how your business has helped a specific client or customer.

Optimize Your Content

Nowadays, it is practically impossible to boost traffic to your website if your content isn’t optimized to be SEO friendly.

Good SEO practices include:

• Keyword research to find what customers are looking for.
• Writing title tags and meta-descriptions.
• Including image alt-tags.
• Writing content with targeted keywords.
• Including header tags.
• Internal page linking with anchor text.
• Making content easy to read.

Engage People on Quora

Quora can help your prospects discover your brand. It is a great platform to engage with the world and those who are categorized in your target audience. The answers you share on the platform may show in Google searches, and you’ll learn more about your audience too.

Keep in mind these top Quora tips:

• Answer questions that are related to your product or services.
• Link back to your blog or site.
• Make sure your answers are detailed.
• Write from experience.
• Include images in your answers.
• Don’t use the platform to spam.

Post on Reddit

You can use Reddit to post links to your blogs that people might find useful. Just make sure your posts are relevant to the topic (subreddit) where you are sharing them.

Post on Medium

If you think you’ve got something other people want to know about, head to Medium. Medium users are after unique and high-quality content and are not interested in the popularity of the author. Here, it really is all about how good your content is. So get your story-teller hat on and give it a go!

Our tips:

• Republish content from your blog or website.
• Create a collection of blogs around a theme that’s related to your business.
• Link back to your website or blog.

Use Email Marketing

One of the most effective marketing channels remains email marketing. Because people use email more than other platforms, and it is very personalized. Or, at least, it can be.

Here are a few tips for increasing web traffic through email marketing:

• Build your email database.
• Entice people to sign up through educational content such as free downloads, free white papers or eBooks.
• Send regular, consistent emails.
• Keep your emails short but very high in quality.
• Craft catchy and personal subject lines.
• Design a landing page for your campaign.
• Avoid any spammy-style sentences.

Start Guest Blogging

Post content on other reputable sites, that way you can drive traffic to your website and build your brand’s credibility. When it comes to guest blogging, the most important step is to find a site to guest post on. In addition to posting your content to other blogs, why not invite experts in your industry to write blogs on your site? This is an amazing marketing strategy that can give your website traffic a boost. These guests will then share their articles and bring in new visitors.

Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

All your efforts to increase website traffic will go to waste if your site is not mobile-friendly. We’re not trying to exaggerate or sound negative, but this is a fact. Because most traffic is generated through mobile phones, it is crucial that your website is easy to read and to browse on mobile.

More Than a Simple Website Visit

The best approach is superbly crafted, unique, high-quality content that is shared on social media, blogs, and email, nicely mixed with targeted adverts on various channels promoting, your (very mobile-friendly) website.

Because, at the end of the day, it is more than a simple website visitors that you are after.

Website traffic tells you how many users visit your website. Analytics tools will often tell you a little more. You will get information about the number of page views and the number of unique page views. Pageviews are the total number of times anyone has visited your site, while unique page views tell you how many people visited your site – some multiple times and some only once.

It is all about your ad campaign targeting parameters; the wider your audience,  the more probability for traffic but lower conversion rates.

To get more insights, learn how to use an Urchin Traffic Monitor (UTM) link to measure traffic from the content you are spreading across various channels and adverts.

There are much fish in the sea or potential website visitors out there. It is up to you to come up with the ad objectives and the budget to help you to reach your specific audience. Keep in mind that understanding your campaign KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is your best weapon – or should we say harpoon?