Last Updated on May 22, 2021 by Guest
Increasing traffic to your website increases the number of times you’ll have the chance to convert. Typically, more traffic means more conversions, even if you have a lower than average conversion rate.
Once you’ve perfected your web design, you need to drive new traffic to get people to see it. However, that might be easier said than done. Increasing website traffic can be challenging for small business owners who don’t grasp digital marketing. To help you navigate this process, here are six tips and strategies you can use to increase traffic to your website.
Advertise
After you’ve created a business website, it’s time to figure out how to get people to visit it. Paid advertising, including paid search, social media, and display advertising, are great methods for attracting visitors to your website. Each advertising channel has its pros and cons, so think carefully about your audience and your goals. Advertising is one of the easiest ways to increase traffic to your website, especially if you enlist the help of a PPC professional who can help you target specific keywords and reach the right people.
Before you implement a paid advertising strategy, think about your goals and how you can use your money most wisely. Do your research before you start spending money on advertising. Make sure that you understand your cost-per-click (CPC) to better budget your ad spend and get the best results for your dollar.
Start with a small budget for advertising on multiple platforms so that you can determine the one that brings in the highest ROI. You might think that Google search ads are the right way to advertise only to find out that your ads perform best on social media. After a month or two of testing your ads, you’ll have a clear view of the platforms that can help you get as many visitors to your website as possible.
Write Good Headlines
Good headlines not only improve your SEO, but they keep people interested in your product or service and on your website. Without a headline that explains the purpose of the page and why a website visitor should be on that page, you’ll quickly lose your website visitors. The headline is the first thing users will see when they visit your page, making sure that it’s something that interests them and provides value. Check out this example from Shareable for Hire’s web page promoting their pre-employment screening services.
As you can see, the headline provides users with their unique value proposition and gives them a reason to remain on the page and learn more. This website knows its audience is looking for an easier way to do background screening of prospective employees who are cost-effective and simple, making this headline compelling.
Start Email Marketing
Even if you don’t have a long subscriber list, you can still send an email to those who have subscribed to your newsletter with a call to action (CTA) that they can click to visit the website or specific pages on your website. It’s beneficial to include a coupon or promotion in these emails, which will improve your email click-through rates (CTRs) and bring more people to your website.
Invest in SEO
While you may have someone on your team who knows enough about optimizing copy to rank on Google, it’s important to work with professionals who know about on-page optimization, off-page SEO, and technical SEO so that you can effectively use these tactics to make your way up the ranks of Google to the number one spot.
SEO might seem like a large investment, especially if you’re working with a full-service agency, but you’ll spend less money working with these professionals in the long run than you will running ads to pages that don’t provide value to your audience.
SEO is about more than optimizing web pages for keywords; it’s about building backlinks, managing your Google My Business profile, checking page speed, and hundreds of other tasks many small businesses can’t do on their own.
A widespread strategy for link building is guest posting. Look for websites that accept articles from external writers and have a write for us section. Offer your services to write an article and insert a link back to your website.
SEO allows your website to rank organically, which means that once you’re on the top of Google for your target keywords, you won’t have to spend as much (if any) money on advertising. Unfortunately, SEO takes time, so it’s important to explore other avenues, such as advertising, to get you results immediately. At the same time, you wait for your website to get to the number one spot.
Work With Influencers
Use an engagement rate calculator to determine which influencers can elevate your website and bring in more traffic. Influencers are extremely knowledgeable about their audience, so they can provide you with new website visitors you didn’t even know to target. For example, if you work in the fashion industry making hats out of sustainable materials, you can ask an influencer to wear your hat in a video or post and give your brand a shoutout with a link back to your page.
Experienced influencers know how to deliver a message to their followers by saying and doing exactly the right things to get their followers to click on a website or buy a product. They’re skilled marketers that can help take your website to the next level in very little time.
If you’re a small business, you can also work with your influencers in other ways, asking them to create content for your website, blog, and social media. Because your influencer also did this work, they’re more likely to share it on their own social media at no additional cost to you to show it off to their fans. The downside of influencer marketing is that you can easily lose money if you’re not experienced working with influencers. Ensure that you vet your influencers and work with those with a high engagement rate, no matter the follower count. A micro-influencer with less than 100,000 followers may have a higher engagement rate and bring more traffic to your website than one with 1,000,000 followers and a low engagement rate.
Use Organic Social Media
If you have a good following on social media, make sure to add the link to your website in your bio and post links to your website regularly. While organic traffic from Facebook may not help you get thousands of visitors to your website, it can help you reach more people at no additional cost.
When starting with a social media strategy, try to focus on your most popular platforms where your customers seem most engaged. This will help you make the most of the limited time and resources you have.
Building website traffic is a common challenge for small business owners, but it doesn’t have to be something you struggle with for long. Consider how you can implement the six strategies above to start bringing new users to your site as soon as possible. Even if you only have the resources to try one at a time, it will add up in the end, and you’ll be glad you put in the work when you start to see an increase in traffic and hopefully more conversions for new customers.
Our Guest Contributor
Matt Casadona has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. He is currently a contributing editor for 365 Business Tips. Matt is passionate about marketing and business strategy and enjoys the San Diego life, traveling, and music.