Imagine you’re a business owner, and you have this amazing website all set up. It has all the hallmarks of a successful business site, including your contact information, details about your products and services, feedback forms and so much more.
It’s exciting, it’s vibrant, and you’re all pumped up about it. However, traffic has been slow.
No one seems to be visiting your site.
Now you’re wondering ‘what’s wrong?’ and checking to see if the site is still functioning.
In reality, you may have the best business website but that’s not enough. You need to know how to drive traffic to your website.
If this is you, then you need to read further as we explore how to get traffic to your website with the help of Google. In this post, we’ll be looking at:
- What the different types of traffic are;
- Why driving traffic is essential for your website;
- Knowing where your traffic is coming from; and
- Strategies to increase all types of traffic.
Why is Driving Traffic Important for Your Website?
As a business, it is essential to know how to promote your website. This is because the majority of your customers will be online.
Online marketing is the most effective marketing strategy in this modern era, and the truth is that a website forms the basis of your company’s online presence.
Driving a high amount of traffic to your website is important for two main reasons:
1. Increased Conversion
Your website is the ‘go-to’ place for the public to get all the information they need about your business. It also functions like a ‘base camp’ for the rest of your online marketing campaigns.
In marketing terms, the word ‘traffic’ is defined as visitors to your site.
The higher the amount of visitors, the higher the number of people will be converted into customers.
We call this ‘conversion’ whereby web traffic translates into sales.
A high amount of conversion from traffic means that you’re generating quality traffic.
Quality traffic is therefore defined as visitors who are likely interested in your products or services and eventually purchasing them with a little push from your converting website.
2. Increased Brand Awareness
Whether you realize it or not, more website visitors will be able to increase the general public awareness about your company, products and services.
These visitors may not need your products right now but they will be able to spread the word to friends and family, thereby increasing your influence and reach.
Understanding the Types of Website Traffic
Before we talk about how to increase traffic to your website, we have to understand where relevant traffic comes from.
There are two main sources of traffic for websites, namely free website traffic, otherwise known as organic traffic, and paid traffic.
We’ll look closer at how both of these differ from one another.
Free Traffic
Free traffic is defined as website viewers who reach your website through unpaid methods.
These methods include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media links.
Free traffic is also known as organic traffic as it attracts visitors through relatively natural means that don’t employ a search engine’s targeting algorithm.
Social media links are pretty straight forward. You can post internal links to different parts of your website to your social media content.
Curious users will click those links to read or find out more about a specific topic so you can start driving ‘real free traffic to my website’.
The link to your website should also be on all your social media profiles, so that users have a place to go to find out all the important information they need to know.
Apart from social media links, there are other free ways to drive traffic to your website. One very significant way is by optimizing your website with SEO keywords.
These keywords would ideally be related to your products or services.
When you have the right SEO keyword research and other website back-end optimizations in place, you can increase the chances of your website appearing more prominently in search engine results.
This basically means that SEO can make your website appear higher in the search results list. The more prominently your website appears, the higher the chances are of users clicking on your website’s link.
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic involves getting site traffic from methods that involve monetary costs. On search engines like Google, there are strategies like Pay Per Click ads.
These ads will make your website appear on the top when anyone searches for related keywords.
For example, on Google, you have to prepay an amount of money to have a PPC ad.
Every click that your link receives will be deducted from the initial amount. Your ad expires when you run out of prepaid clicks.
Apart from paying for traffic on Google, you also have the option of paying for ads to promote your site on social media.
Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all have options where you can advertise your brand and website.
Paid traffic usually has a higher conversion rate when it comes to visitors. This is because it is specifically targeted at demographics with higher prospects of turning into customers.
What is Quality Traffic and Why Do You Need It?
Ok, so we’ve talked about free vs paid traffic. The thing you need to realize is that even if you increase these two types of traffic to their maximum levels, it won’t necessarily translate to sales.
In essence, much like virtual marketing, you need quality traffic with high conversion rates and engagement rates.
Simply because there’s no use having an increase in website traffic when a majority of those visiting have no interest and no intention of buying your products or obtaining your services.
Therefore, in tandem with driving traffic to web sites, you should also work at improving the quality of that website traffic from search engines.
You can increase the quality of your website traffic in a number of ways, including:
Optimization of Your Website
Improving your website makes visitors stay longer, and have more interaction with you.
These include placing lead capture forms on the right places, providing all the important information on the landing page, and making your website easy to navigate so that visitors can intuitively find what they need.
Placing what you deem important (in this case the newsletter subscription button and lead form) in the correct positions without hindering readability is crucial in reducing bounce rate.
Revamping or Redesigning Your Website
If your site is old, or cramped and unfriendly, it’s time to give it an overhaul. Getting started means learning how to revamp a website.
Revamping your website has many benefits, but the most important one is that it will increase the attention the website gets.
Having a more modern and up to date website is important in keeping the website traffic that arrives there.
Adding a call to action, with links to a buying site or a contact number, can significantly increase website traffic conversion too.
Identifying Your Target Market
Identifying your target market, including their demographic, location, age range and so on will help when you design and determine ad parameters on social media.
When you optimize your ads to reach the right demographics, the rates of conversion will increase as well.
For example, if you’re selling baby products, you want to target those who have a higher chance of expecting.
Therefore, the right demographics to target would include women between the ages of 20-40.
Get Notice Now – Increase Traffic With 21 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Here’ we’ll be looking at practical strategies that you can put into practice easily. These strategies will be divided into free website traffic and paid traffic strategies.
Strategies to get web traffic are not technically complex, and can be implemented by anyone.
Organic/ Free Traffic Strategies
These strategies don’t require any monetary resources. However, you’ll have to spend time on them, to research and get them right. If you’re thinking ‘I want free traffic to my website fast’, you should first understand that these strategies take time!
1. Search Engine Optimization
There are many parts of your site that can be optimized to make it appear on search engine results.
Many of these optimizations take place on the back-end of the website. These include improving meta titles & descriptions, optimizing loading time, working on title tags, keyword insertion, providing inbound and outbound links, and much more.
Although SEO may seem simple, it actually takes a lot of training and practice to get it right. You may want to improve your website’s SEO by getting it evaluated by SEO experts. Heh, why not consider One Search Pro?
2. Have Interactive Content on Your Site
One effective method to keep visitors on your site for longer is to keep them engaged and entertained. This can come in various forms, including a forum, highly informative copy, customer reviews, infographics, rewards, videos, and so on.
The more involved your visitors feel, the longer they will stay on your website and the more likely they will spread the word about your site.
Increasing engagement with visitors will also reduce the bounce rate of your site, which is the rate at which visitors leave immediately rather than stay on your site.
3. Create Quality Unique Content
For many websites, one strategy to attract free traffic is to have content that is unique. This means producing new content that no one else has done.
Try adding more unique content, which isn’t a repeat or copy paste of what your competitors are offering. This way, visitors will regard your site as an authority on that topic.
It also works if you’re one of the very few of the first to report or talk about something. One way you can get a reliable source and ideas for content is sites like HARO ( Help A Reporter Out).
Group sourcing for content and content ideas is one practical way to stand out from the crowd and establish yourself as an authority on a subject. Preferably, your content should relate back to your products and services.
4. Make Sure Your Google Business Profile is Perfect
Signing up for a Google business profile is a must these days, especially for businesses that depend on local customers. These include businesses that have a brick and mortar store, and are based in a specific geographical location.
Some examples of localized businesses include digital marketing agency (of course), pharmacies, dentists, electricians, restaurants, beauty salons and more.
If this is you, make sure that your Google Business Profile is optimized, especially your local SEO. This includes updating your website address, contact number, location pin on Google maps, opening hours, and others.
Providing your website address is an effective method if you’re wondering how to increase organic traffic for free. Once users search for a term, and your profile pops up, they’ll click on your website to know more.
5. Link Your Website on Social Media
Apart from just having a website, your business will benefit from having several social media accounts. There are a few ways you can promote your website on your social media platforms.
The first is by providing your website address on your profile or ‘About’ section. The second is by linking other parts of your website on your social media posts.
This second method can take on many forms. You can link a blog post on your page, a page explaining the latest promotions, instructional videos, and so on.
6. Use Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are words that are able to link content of the same topic on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. These tags can be clicked on and all the content on that social media site with the hashtag will appear.
Using hashtags to drive traffic to your website takes some creativity.
First of all, the hashtag to promote your website has to be unique and not used by anyone else before. It should also be catchy, and should contain your brand name or a reference to it.
Posts that contain the hashtag should ideally have a link to your website as well, so that you can raise brand awareness in tandem with a website traffic increase.
7. Effective Keyword Research is Key
Previously we talked about improving SEO, whereby inserting the right keyword into different aspects of the site will help make your website more obvious on search engine results.
These keywords should be placed in content like the landing page, meta description, blog articles, title tags, and more. Mastering the process of picking the right keywords is important for improving your standing on Google.
Usually, keyword planning for SEO is done with an SEO keyword tool. Google Keyword Planner is one of the top free tools in use today, and there are many others online too like SEMRush and WordStream.
That being said, free things (and tools) too, have their limitations in terms of functionalities and comprehensiveness offered.
If you’re someone who doesn’t want to break a big hole in the wallet subscribing to a pay-per-month keyword research tool, why not subscribe to a professional SEO expert agency instead?
8. Form Partnerships for Backlinks
One method of increasing the visibility of your website is by having it on someone else’s website. This particular strategy has to be done as a partnership with another company or brand.
Basically, you will feature content that has a link to their website, and they will likewise feature your website on their content. These links to your site from other websites are called backlinks.
The more partnerships you form in the industry, the more backlinks you can generate and the more quality traffic you can obtain.
Of course, to generate quality traffic, you should form partnerships with relevant businesses of individuals whose audience fit your target market.
9. Email Marketing is a Blast
Email marketing may seem like such a simple and archaic thing to do. Despite how it looks, email marketing can see your website traffic increase significantly.
Email marketing is when you mass send emails to a large number of addresses, many of whom would have purchased or dealt with your brand before. Therefore email marketing is great for repeat customers, especially when you have promotions or a new product.
10. Get Listed on Listing Websites
Online directories are sites on the internet that list out businesses in the area. Some examples of these listing sites or online directories include Foursquare and Yelp.
If your business is not yet on any of these sites, it would help if you can register yourself on them. Be sure to include a link to your main website, so as to guide interested parties there.
Being listed in as many online directories as possible will also mean that your site gets seen by more people, who will click the link and interact with it.
11. Get a Guest to Post
Guest posts can be done by either a company, or a single influencer. What happens is that the external party provides content on your site, and then shares it to their circle of influence.
For example, if you’re a tech company, you can ask a tech influencer with more than 50,000 followers to write a blog post on your site. The tech influencer then shares this blog post on their website or social media account, causing their followers to click on this piece and end up on your site.
In exchange, you’ll be able to help the guest post reach a larger audience among your current followers.
Further reading: How to Find Your Social Media Target Audience
12. Keep Your Content Fresh
New content should be posted on your site regularly, and you should renew outdated website designs that have become user-unfriendly too. Just like interior designs, website designs have trends and methods that make user experience more efficient and effortless.
Therefore, to keep your website looking modern and up to date, budget for a fresh new overhaul every three to four years.
There are parts of your website that should be updated every few days, and this includes the blog, how to, ideas, or promotions sections. New content means that there are more chances for you to share on your social media channels/partner sites and promote your website.
13. User Experience (UX) Is Top Priority
It’s important to optimize your site to ensure that visitors feel welcomed and comfortable. There are many aspects in forming a good UX on your site.
These days, Brutalism is very popular as a theme for website layouts. This style is marked by a very minimalist design with wide open spaces on the page, as well as subdued colors rather than bright ones.
Apart from that, the website should also be intuitive to use, meaning that all the necessary links should be obvious and visible. The page loading time should be minimized and there shouldn’t be too many pop-ups.
14. Infographics and Visual Content Slay
It’s no secret that people in general don’t like large walls of text. That’s why your website should ideally present information with as little text as possible.
If you need to, you can choose to present more complex ideas in the form of an infographic. If your website is easy on the eyes, visitors will likely stay longer to interact with it.
Visuals and graphics should therefore be your main method of information presentation, and some common examples may include the use of link bait and complimentary colors.
15. Referral Traffic Needs Attention Too
Referral traffic is traffic that arrives at your website from other sites, be it regular websites and social media platforms. They don’t arrive from searching for you on Google, but from links they clicked on other sites.
When building your website popularity, it’s important to focus on referral traffic in addition to direct traffic from search engines.
You can increase your website traffic rankings by building backlinks from various parts of the internet. This can be done in many of the ways mentioned before, like guest writing, sponsoring a post, getting listed and more.
16. Use Analytical Data to Help You
Google Analytics is one tool that gives you data about how much traffic a website gets. This data is presented in the form of graphs.
You can track information about the visitors that arrive at your website, like what time and day do most of them arrive, where they’re located, their gender, age and where they arrived from. You’ll be able to check website traffic free of charge too.
Analytics helps when you want to identify traffic that is generated and sent through the network. Paying attention to these data will help you implement changes to your website, both at the front end and back end, in order to improve engagement.
Paid Traffic Strategies
These paid traffic strategies are usually provided by a search engine like Google. You will be required to spend some resources and it will cost your marketing budget to maintain them. These paid strategies last only for as long as you pay the necessary fees for them.
17. Google Ads
There are several types of Google Ads available, and you don’t necessarily have to use all of them. Two of the most common Google Ads are search ads and display ads.
Your business will be placed at the top of search results when you choose Search Ads and show up as side banners or horizontal banners on relevant websites when you choose Display ads.
Both these ads are usually very effective in bringing in traffic.
Planning and designing these ads including how many ads should be implemented per ad group is equally as important as choosing the types of Google Ads to run.
18. Organize Promotional Contests and Giveaways
Promotions are some of the easiest ways to attract attention to your site. In short, the public loves it when there are freebies to be won or enjoyed.
In addition to just prizes and giveaways, you can also be creative and offer coupons, cashbacks and other benefits that will make their shopping and purchasing experience better.
19. Ads on Social Media
Apart from search engines like Google, you can also post ads on social media accounts like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
One of the most versatile places to post ads is on Facebook, where you can post all sorts of ads and boost your content.
Facebook’s algorithm is one of the best in displaying your ads to the right demographic.
They also give you lots of control over the parameters for targeting, which will affect how much you spend on it.
You may be interested in: Best Time to Post on Facebook
20. Retargeting Customers
In marketing, retargeting means advertising to individuals who have purchased from you before, or have visited your site before but have since gone inactive.
There are many algorithms that can help you do this, but all in all you do need the help of experts, who will use things like cookies and the Google Ads network to track and retarget those who have previously shown interest in your site.
21.Consider Influencer Marketing
Influencers are individuals or celebrities that will be able to expose your brand to their followers or fans.
In short, they’re able to bring your brand to a new breed of audience that may not have seen your brand before.
Investing in this method lets you leverage their following to bring in more potential interest into your website.
How Do You Choose the Best Tactics For Boosting Your Website Traffic?
There are several important factors to consider when you want to drive traffic to websites. These checklist of factors and criteria will help you choose the best strategy to fit your current requirements based on the resources that you have.
What’s Your Budget?
When it comes to making choices on website traffic increaser strategies, this should be the first question to ask.
Some businesses have no budget at all, in which case they have to choose organic strategies.
Keep in mind that while paid strategies do not necessarily need a high budget, theyl need you to to spend consistently over a period of time to see visible results.
What’s Your Skill Level?
Some strategies, like SEO, require a higher technical skill level than, say, influencer marketing. Choosing a less technically complex strategy can still yield effective results, so don’t discount them.
What are Your Campaign Goals?
Setting goals ensures the success of your strategy. Some strategies are more suited for certain types of goals.
For example, increasing referral traffic with backlinks increases brand awareness within a specific topic-related community and rarely outside it.
Traffic is Essential for Conversion
If your website is already up and ready to go, but you don’t know why it’s not performing the way it’s supposed to, then it’s time to ask yourself the big question – ‘How to generate traffic to my site?’
At One Search Pro we don’t just help when a client wants to get more clicks, we provide full consultation on how you can maintain those website impressions too.
Come and talk with us and we’ll help you understand how to drive traffic to your website and reach its full potential!
Frequently Asked Questions On How To Drive Traffic To Your Website
1. Can I increase my traffic without SEO?
Yes, it is possible to increase traffic without SEO. However, SEO is one of the most effective ways to increase your website traffic effectively and consistently.
And yes, SEO by your own individual effort is not out of the question, but why not stand back and let the trained professionals do what they do best?
Related: How to Choose An SEO Company
2. Can I Increase website traffic via marketing without an agency?
It’s still possible to increase traffic without the help of an agency, but an agency will save you lots of time and resources in the long run as it has more technical knowledge and experience compared to say, a freelancer.
3. Does buying traffic from a traffic generator work?
There’s no guarantee that this will increase how much traffic does a website get. Furthermore, you may be penalized by Google by not having your website targeted and even having your website banned.
4. How Does One Make Money From Website Traffic?
As we’ve previously established that more traffic means more sales as there are more visitors you can convert into customers, prospects can end up creating monetary values out of your website traffic!
