We all know that being a marketer or business owner, what we’d like most in the world is “more customers.” And somehow, customers are related to website traffic.
Yes, for becoming a successful company, your website must be getting huge traffic. But what to do if you are not getting such huge traffic that is required? So, here we are with a complete guide including several ways to boost site traffic.
Well, before learning the ways to increase traffic, it is very important to understand a few basics. Hence, let’s begin with why we need more website traffic.
Why More Website Traffic?
Not only an important indicator but website traffic is also one great driver of business growth. Therefore, it can help you in several ways:
a. Know how good your marketing is working
b. Collect insights about your audience to make decisions
c. Improve your search engine credibility as well as SEO
d. Increase conversions, generate more leads and get more customers
However, for achieving such benefits, it is very important that driving traffic to your website is in the right way and focus is on driving quality traffic.
Quality Traffic vs. Free Traffic
There is no doubt that traffic to your website helps to improve your rank, and it further generates more traffic, but then the question arises - Would this increase in traffic help your business grow?
For that, know that the increase in traffic is associated with an increase in engagement as well. Yes, be aware that you’re not bringing in the right traffic until your conversion rates are not increasing along with the traffic.
Well, don’t worry, there are many ways in which we can optimize our website for conversion—like by including calls to action and lead capture forms in the right places, making navigation easy and intuitive, and providing the information your visitors are seeking.
Still, the first important thing to do is attracting the right visitors to your site. Yes, this should be the goal when it comes to website traffic is to be driving more qualified visitors to your site in the first place because only that will help you to convert into more leads and customers.
List of Channels that Drive Quality Traffic to Your Site
We don’t have any set-it-and-forget-it tool that helps to generate free and high-quality traffic to our website. Instead, there is a mix of channels that work together and help to drive visitors. Well, all of them come with demand. Yes, some require time, some require effort, and some require money.
So, here we are mentioning some of the strategies and channels that drive traffic to your website. It includes-
a. Online directory listings
b. Off-page SEO
c. On-page SEO
d. Email
e. Online ads
f. Social media
g. Blogging
15 Proven Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic
Now, after knowing all the basics here, we’ll go into more detail in the next section on the most effective as well as reliable ways of increasing website traffic.
1. Be Active on Social Media
Gone are the days when writing good content was enough and then hoping that people discover it. Yes, now, you have to be proactive even after writing. Here we are talking about social media. Undoubtedly, to use social media channels to promote your content is one of the best ways to increase traffic to your website.
If we talk specifically, for short, snappy (and tempting) links, Twitter is an ideal platform, whereas promotion on Google+ can help the site show up in personalized search results and seems chiefly effective in B2B niches. One might find great traction with image-heavy social sites like Pinterest and Instagram if they’re a B2C product company.
2. Target Long-Tail Keywords
Got your popular keyword and high-intent keyword bases covered? So, now it’s time to target long-tail keywords, too. Yes, and the reason is long-tail keywords account for a majority of web searches.
It implies that if anyhow you’re not targeting them as part of your paid search or SEO efforts, you’re missing out on something big.
3. Having a Responsive Site is Must
Having a responsive site could be one of the most important ways to increase traffic. Yes, the era when internet browsing was done exclusively on desktop PCs is long gone. Now, more and more people than ever before are using mobile devices to access the web.
And if you are anyway forcing your visitors to scroll and pinch their way around your site, you’re asking them to go elsewhere. So, all you need is to be sure that your website is comfortably viewable plus accessible across a range of devices, including smaller smartphones.
4. Add a Sense of Community
As we know, communication bridges the gap and strengthen relationships. That’s what is happening here also. Making a community will surely help you as many people out there want to speak their minds and weigh in on subjects they are passionate about. So to start a conversation and increase traffic to your website, building a community into your site is a great way.
Creating a dedicated forum where visitors can ask questions or implementing a robust commenting system through third-party solutions like Facebook comments or Disqus could also be a helpful gesture. So, to ensure that minimum standards of decorum are met, don’t forget to manage your community.
5. Foster Video into Your Content Strategy
We cannot say that the text-based content is not good because it is going for years, but now with changing times, video can be a valuable asset. Yes, it attracts new visitors by making our site more engaging.
According to the surveys, information retention is significantly higher for visual material than it is for text. It implies that video marketing is not only an excellent way to grab and hold your audience’s attention but also helps to boost the traffic of your website at the same time.
6. Advertise a Lot
It is one obvious way to get more traffic. Isn’t it? Well, social media advertising, paid search, as well as, display advertising are all excellent ways of attracting visitors, getting your site in front of people, and building your brand.
Also, make sure you adjust your paid strategies to suit your objectives – like do you need more traffic or look to enhance conversions too? Besides that, each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think twice about your goals before you reach for your credit card.
Moreover, you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your paid search strategies, especially if you’re hoping that more traffic to your site to result in more sales. Even if the competition for these search terms is fierce (and expensive), the payoffs can be worth it.
7. Create Compelling Headlines
Well, one of the most important parts of your content is Headline. And you can use it well. Yes, even the most comprehensive blog post will go unread without a compelling headline. So, all you need to do is master the art of headline writing.
For instance, the writers at Upworthy and BuzzFeed often write more than twenty different headlines before finally settling on the one that will drive the most traffic. In all, think carefully about your headline before you push “publish.”
8. Initiate Guest Blogging
Another thing you can do is Guest Blogging. Well, you might think that true guest blogging is dead. We must say, it isn’t despite what you may have heard.
So, securing some space as a guest post on a reputable site will not harm you but will surely help increase blog traffic to your website and build your brand into the bargain.
However, be aware that during the past eighteen months, standards for guest blogging have changed radically, and spammy tactics could result in stiff penalties and proceed with caution.
9. Pay Attention to On-Page SEO
Well, besides that, optimizing your content for the search engines is still a valuable and worthwhile practice. So, keep sure few things like- are you creating internal links to new content? Or are you making the most of the image alt text? Also, what about meta descriptions?
Hence, keeping all that in mind optimizing for on-page SEO doesn’t have to take ages, and it could surely boost your organic traffic.
10. Let all to Guest Blog on Your Site
As we have already mentioned Guest blogging above, it is a two-way street. Yes, you can also invite people in your niche to blog on your site in addition to posting content to other blogs.
So in this way, they might share and link to their guest article, which will eventually bring new readers to your site. Well, for this, be sure that you only post original plus high-quality content even without any spammy links because Google is cracking down on low-quality guest blogging.
11. Internal Linking
Not only how many sites link back to you determines the strength of your link profile, but it can also be affected by your internal linking structure. So, be sure to keep an eye out for opportunities for internal links when creating and publishing content.
Yes, it will surely help you with SEO and will also result in a better, more useful experience for the user as a cornerstone of increasing traffic to your website.
12. Implement Schema Microdata
Well, we must say that implementing schema (or another microdata format) won’t certainly increase traffic to your website on its own, but it will surely make it easier for search engine bots to find and index your pages.
Apart from that, it can result in better rich site snippets, which can improve click-through rates, which is another benefit of using schema for SEO.
13. Make Sure Your Site is Not Slow
Have you ever wait thirty seconds for a web page to load? Well, no one has. So, be aware that even your bounce rate will be sky high if your site takes forever to load.
And, remember that your pages or sites are as technically optimized as possible, including page structure, image file sizes, as well as the functionality of third-party plugins. The faster your page loads, the better it is for your ranking.
14. Be Available in Comment Sections
Again this step will not necessarily provide an immediate boost to referral traffic right away but joining the conversations on industry blogs and sites by providing insightful, thought-provoking comments is one amazing path to get your name highlighted.
And, this subsequently results in driving more traffic to your site. But before that, know that quality and relevance are key with guest posting, similarly you should be engaging with other people in your niche, definitely not by dropping spam links on unrelated websites.
15. Try Hosting Webinars Often
There are several people out there who are just waiting to learn something new all the time. And, webinars are an excellent way you can choose to impart your wisdom to your eagerly waiting audience.
Besides, webinars are a great way to increase traffic to your website, combined with an effective social media campaign. Also, keep sending out an email a week or so ahead of time, with a “last chance to register” reminder days before the webinar.
Further, remember to promote your webinars widely through social media by archiving the presentation for later viewing.
Takeaway Thoughts
So, we have seen some of the best methods you can try to drive more as well as quality traffic to your website. Remember that getting more website visitors is not something that happens overnight. But, we hope that using the above methods, you can get the right visitors coming to your site and more of those conversions for sure.
