“Today, it’s not about “get the traffic” – it’s about getting the targeted and relevant traffic.” ~Adam Audette
Having 1,000,000 visitors to your website sounds impressive, but is it going to help you in achieving your targeted goal?
A website with higher ranks attracts more visitors, but it’s crucial to ensure increased traffic leads to better engagement.
If your visitor numbers rise while your conversion rates remain the same or decrease, it means you’re not attracting the right kind of high-quality traffic.
Before delving into methods to increase traffic, it’s essential to grasp the significance of quality online (web) traffic.
High-Quality Traffic
In the online world, we need not just more traffic but rather traffic that aligns with the customer’s buyer persona – high-quality traffic.
That’s because visitors who match your buyer persona show interest, search for your product, and are more likely to convert.
So it’s fair to say that high-quality traffic leads to more conversions, increased engagement across various channels, and higher sales.
Now, let’s explore the proven methods to significantly increase website traffic:
- Have a Business Blog
Blogs are an excellent way to interact with your audience and customers while attracting valuable inbound links.
A study by HubSpot Marketing found that businesses with blogs receive 55% more website visitors than those without.
Moreover, companies that blog gain 97% more backlinks to their websites, making it a crucial aspect to include.
- Utilize Different Types of Content
Media and utilities are excellent Types of content that can turn a text-heavy site into something that pleases the viewing preferences of multiple audiences.
Content takes place in the form of:
- Imagery (including infographics)
- Video
- Ebooks
- Demo / Trails
- Podcasts / Webinars
- Audio
- Presentations
- Email subscriptions
- Online utility tools
Try using many different forms of content. It will help create a content-rich experience.
You can also email well-known experts in your field for an interview and post it on your blog. This will improve your credibility and attract more visitors to your site, and the interviewee may share it, increasing its visibility.
- Credibility
No matter what you’re selling, potential buyers like to see confirmation that you’ve made other customers happy.
Testimonials, customer reviews, and case studies are powerful content sources for moving prospects closer to the final buying stages.
- Provide authentic customer stories, and don’t hide these behind a form.
- Place real, short, and powerful testimonials on your site.
- Invite guest bloggers to your website
Incorporating guest bloggers into your strategy is a win-win, as it not only enriches your content but also attracts a broader audience, ultimately increasing traffic and engagement.
They can expand your reach by bringing their followers to your site, increasing traffic.
Also, High-quality guest posts improve SEO rankings, making your site more discoverable. Expertise from guest bloggers adds credibility and authority to your website, encouraging more visitors.
Guest blogging helps maintain content consistency, keeping audiences engaged and returning for more. Furthermore, Sharing content creation with guest bloggers reduces workload and frees up time for other website tasks.
But remember that you only publish high-quality, original content without any spammy links to avoid Google penalties and traffic loss.
- Target Keywords
Short-tail keywords have a tremendous amount of search volume. Short-tail keywords are very generic.
That’s why it isn’t easy to pinpoint them because they tend to be all around the place.
Body keywords are 2 to 3-word phrases with a good search volume, not high, not low. They are also called medium keywords.
Long-tail keywords consist of 4 or more words with a low search volume. When customers use a particular search phrase, they look for precisely what they will buy.
In most cases, specific searches often lead to more sales than broad, generic ones, which people usually do before deciding to buy something.
So, the critical factor is Specificity.
- Latent Semantic Indexing
LSI is like a Search Engine using word association to figure out words related to your primary keyword.“LSI keywords” are words with a high degree of correlation to your primary keyword.
The terms that are semantically related to your main keyword.
LSI keywords are not synonyms; they are words frequently found together because they share the same context.
For example, “Apple,” “fruit,” and “iTunes” are LSI keywords because they share the same context and are frequently found together. But they are not synonyms.
It has been confirmed that using more LSI keywords will typically cause your page to rank better.
LSI Graph is a good tool for finding LSI keywords; it gives you a longer list of potentially related words.
You can also find the search’s related words at the bottom of your results page on Google.
- Meta Title & Meta Description
This may be the least desirable component of SEO, but it is a definite must-have.
The Meta Title is displayed at the top of your browser window, explicitly explaining what the page is about. Keep it within 60 characters, place the keyword near the start, and show value or advantage.
The Meta Description shows under your website link in search results, helping users understand the page content and encouraging them to click. Write 155-165 characters, highlighting reader benefits and making it actionable.
6. Internal linking
Internal linking is an effective strategy for increasing website traffic and improving user experience.
By connecting related pages on your site, visitors are encouraged to explore more content, keeping them engaged longer. This enhanced engagement signals search engines that your site offers valuable information, potentially boosting search rankings.
Additionally, internal links help search engine crawlers navigate your site more efficiently, ensuring that all your pages are indexed. This results in better visibility in search results, attracting organic traffic.
By providing a user-friendly experience and enhancing SEO, internal linking is a powerful tool to increase website traffic while keeping visitors engaged and informed.
7. Regularly update your content
Content may become outdated over time, and its freshness affects search rankings. To maintain its relevance, consider these strategies:
1. Update or add new information and statistics.
2. Replace old visuals or create new ones to demonstrate ideas.
3. Include links to up-to-date resources.
4. Repair broken links and images.
5. Add new keywords from the Search Console query report (more on this later).
6. Adjust your meta title and meta description.
8. URL optimization
– Optimized URLs improve search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.
– Well-structured URLs are user-friendly, build trust, and drive more engagement.
– Optimized URLs with target keywords lead to higher CTRs and improved search engine rankings.
– Clear, relevant URLs encourage users to stay on the site longer, reducing bounce rates.
– Optimized URLs contribute to better mobile experiences and increased visibility on mobile devices.
9. Web Page Speed
No one wants to wait 30 seconds for a web page to load, and slow sites lead to high bounce rates.
Ensure your pages are optimized, with smaller image files, well-organized structure, and efficient third-party plugins. Faster loading sites are more successful.
10. Create a Responsive Site
Since most internet traffic now comes from mobile devices, it’s essential to have a user-friendly website for various device sizes, like smartphones.
Visitors may leave if your site is challenging to navigate on smaller screens. Ensure your website is accessible and easy to view across different devices including smartphones.
11. Building Indispensable Inbound Links
Inbound links (also called backlinks) are links from outside domains that point to pages on your domain, essentially linking back from their domain to yours.
These links are valuable because they are hyperlinks on a third-party web page pointing to your site’s web page.
One of the prevalent methods of increasing inbound links is Writing Guest blogs. Writing guest blogs is a symbiotic relationship between the two. A piece of your content is featured on someone’s blog, and you get increased visibility/links from the other blog.
Do not forget to add the “About Author” section, which can help fetch “backlinks” to your site/blog.
Furthermore, you can also examine your competitors’ backlink profiles and data using Backlink Analysis tools.
Some of the most popular ways of increasing inbound links.
12. Competitor analysis
To boost your website traffic:
- Study competitor keywords to find search terms to target. Add these keywords to your content for better search rankings and more organic traffic.
- Investigate competitors’ content for missed topics or insufficient coverage. Address these gaps to attract visitors seeking specific information.
- Examine competitors’ backlink profiles to find high-quality backlink sources from authoritative websites. This helps improve search rankings and drive traffic.
- Compare your site’s quality and user experience with competitors’ to identify improvements. Enhanced content and interface engage visitors and encourage return visits.
- Analyze competitors’ social media strategies to understand which platforms drive traffic and engagement effectively. Adjust your social media efforts accordingly.
- Learn from competitors’ successes and failures, Adjust your strategies, Make your website unique, and increase its appeal to your target audience.
In short, competitive analysis helps refine SEO, content, and marketing strategies, making your website stand out and draw more traffic.
13. Make Content Social & Shareable
In 2023, there are projected to be 4.89 billion social media users globally, marking a 6.5% increase from the previous year.
Presently, more than half (59.3%) of the world’s population uses social media.
It’s very apparent why you should take advantage of this opportunity.
Providing people with excellent content to share with their peers will surely increase your traffic flow.
Add a sharing widget or plugin to every page on your site. This will enable visitors to share your pages via all the major social networks.
If you’re on a blogging platform like HubSpot, Wix or WordPress, there are ways available that enable people to share your articles plus auto-publish content to your social networks like Twitter, Meta and more.
14. Post Content on LinkedIn on regular basis
LinkedIn is the largest professional social network.
So, regularly post content there to increase website traffic, attract visitors to your LinkedIn Company Page, and enhance your industry reputation.
15. Use Hashtags
Hashtags on social media show followers and algorithms that your content relates to a specific topic, making it easier for users to find relevant content across platforms.
This helps your content reach a broad or targeted audience. Use precise hashtags to attract the right audience.
Although not necessary, capitalizing the first letter of each word in a hashtag can make it clearer.
16. Social Media Advertising
On social media platforms like Meta, X, and Linkedin, you can target digital ads to specific groups based on age, gender, interests, or education levels.
Using data from your website visitors’ activities, such as the pages or products they viewed and when you can easily create and manage ads that target people interested in your offer.
Retargeting ads can also be used on websites and social media feeds. These ads appear to people who have visited your site before, making them more likely to return.
17. PPC Ads
PPC, or pay-per-click, is a digital marketing strategy that can yield results when done correctly. It involves using paid advertisements on various platforms to appear prominently in search results.
Unlike gaining organic traffic through SEO, which can take time to establish a reputation, PPC advertising quickly targets the right audience.
By bidding on specific keywords in your ads manager, you can secure a top spot on search engine results pages. This prioritizes your chosen keyword and increases the chances of attracting more traffic.
18. Use an Effective landing page
Landing pages offer free website traffic tailored to your offers. They provide essential details so users can proceed and focus on a single call to action, making success more likely.
Remember these characteristics to assemble a good landing page.
- Keep your pages simple and minimize distractions.
- Never use your homepage as a landing page.
- Remove or limit main site navigation from the landing page so visitors can focus on completing the form and not continue searching your site.
- Make it very clear what the offer is and make it irresistible.
- Ensure that your landing page’s content matches your call to action. If there is a disconnect between the two, visitors will hit the Back button.
- Reduce friction – don’t make visitors overthink or do too much work (i.e. reading).
19. User Experience
User experience is crucial as Google strives to offer the best experience to users. If your website lacks excellent UX, it will be difficult to rank high in search results.
a. Besides text-based content, graphics can draw more visitors and maintain their interest. Incorporate graphics throughout your content.
b. Have an attention-grabbing call-to-action.
c. Implement live chatbots for answering queries.
d. Ensure an appealing overall design for your website.
These are some factors that influence user experience.
Conclusion
The internet has transformed the way we do business. To connect with potential buyers, having a strong online presence is crucial.
A successful business website is the cornerstone of an effective inbound marketing strategy. It combines SEO, social media, blogging, content, calls to action, and landing pages to increase traffic, leads, and sales.
Inbound marketing helps attract qualified leads to fill your sales funnel, while your website serves as a platform for education, engagement, and conversion.
By adhering to these principles, you’ll create a high-performing website that generates traffic and sales. Remember that a website should continuously evolve. Stay informed about updates and keep learning to enhance its effectiveness.
Thank you for reading.