Lack of website traffic is a common problem for businesses. Particularly in the early days. There are a few ways to build visitors to your website. 1, Pay to advertise. Target the keywords or the websites your customers visit and pay to run adverts. Or 2, Create content and resources so people searching for your topic can find you.
The first option is often not possible for smaller organisations that don’t necessarily have the same marketing budget as others. But #2 is possible without having to spend anything at all.
1. Create great content
First and foremost, to get more people to visit your website, you have to give them a reason to visit. This reason is your content. That’s what’s going to get people to look at your page, so you have to make it worth looking at.
There are a few things you can focus on to ensure that your content is the best it can be:
Answer questions
If you know who your audience is, then you know the kinds of questions that they ask. It’s up to your content to answer those questions. Keyword research is important here, and something like Google’s Keyword Planner can help you find out what people are searching for. If you can give people solutions to their problems, they’re more likely to read and share your content.
Another great resource is Quora.com or Reddit.com. There people ask and answer questions. Look at the most common questions being asked and answer them on your own website.
And look at your own customers, sales people and customer support. What are the common questions that get asked there? Now answer them on your site as a blog post, video or even an ebook.
Originality
Make sure that your content is original. You want to give your readers information that they can’t get anywhere else. If there’s a popular topic that’s been written about many times before, see if you can look at it from a different angle. An angle specific to your niche. Ask your question in Google then look at the end of the page for related questions and topics for ideas.
This is something that Google will reward you for as well. You’re less likely to rank in google search results if your site is full of duplicate content. Google will simply rank the original content instead. Coming up with new and original content is important for your website to be easily found through search engines.
Headlines
A headline that can grab someone’s attention means that people are more likely to stick around and read the whole post. These days the average reader’s attention span is 8 seconds, so you need to be able to capture them quickly. According to headline research from Buffer, readers tend to absorb the first three words of a headline and the last three words.
Create a sense of urgency with your headline. Give your reader a deadline. Something like ‘Read these tips before you do X’, or simply add the word ‘now.’ ’10 Tips to Increase Revenue Now’ is a lot more enticing than ’10 Tips to Increase Revenue.’ Make a promise in your headline. Ensure you deliver on it in your content.
It’s important to take time on your headline. You want to be spending up to 80% of your time on your headline. Come up with two or three possible headlines and see which one works the best. If you can get someone to keep reading after the headline then half your work is done.
2. Generate referral traffic
Now that you’ve got the perfect content written, you need people to look at it. Smaller or newer businesses may not have built up enough of a ranking to be high up on search engine results. So why not post that content where your audience is already.
Referral traffic indicates the people that visit your site from places other than search engines. These include external links and social media links. This type of traffic is important as they are inclined to be more qualified prospects. They may have come from a source that is in the same niche as you, or from your social media profile, so are more likely to already have an interest in your business.
These kinds of clicks are also good for your SEO. If they come from a trusted site, Google will see it as a positive towards your ranking and you’re more likely to be ranked higher in their results.
Here are a few ideas on how to gain more referral traffic to your website:
Guest blog posts
Guest blogging for someone else is a perfect way to get more attention to your own website. You can add a link to your site to generate more clicks, and you will be creating awareness for your business and an easy way for people to find you.
You need to make sure that you’re focusing on good quality blogs by people who are considered thought leaders in your industry. As long as the links to your website are coming from a trusted source, not only will Google rank you higher in their results, but potential customers will consider you worth looking into.
Social media
This is pretty obvious, but it’s important, so it’s worth stating. It’s so easy to create potential referrals from your social media sites. By sharing your content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., you’re basically handing your potential customers the links to click on.
Tailor your content to the different social media platforms to make sure that they’re grabbing the most attention. Does your post contain infographics? Share it on Pinterest where an image is more likely to do well. Images are also good for sharing on Twitter, as well as short, catchy titles. Also make sure that you’ve got the facilities put in place for the reader to share your post so that it can reach a wider audience and not just your own followers.
Share a piece of content more than once so as to lessen the risk of it getting lost after the day it’s published. Depending on the platform, you can share it on the day it’s published, a day or two after and a week or two after. You don’t want to spam your followers, so make sure that you’re using a different hook each time you share. Use the title of the post first of all, then you could use a quote, or a statistic from the post in the subsequent shares.
Interact on blogs and forums
It’s worth taking the time to comment and interact with other people’s blogs and with industry forums. This can make people aware of you and your business, and if your comments are relevant and focused on your niche, it can promote you as a thought leader in your field.
Don’t spam comment sections by promoting yourself and your business, but give advice and remark on the content of the blog or forum so that you can establish yourself as knowledgeable and valuable.
3. Focus on getting subscribers
Getting people to visit your website is just the beginning, you need to make sure they come back to visit again and again until they are ready to become a customer. The easiest way to do this is to get them to subscribe so that they get an email every time you publish something new, or have an offer available.
The simplest and most direct way to do this is to have a subscription form on your website’s landing page, making it as easy as possible to sign up. It’s worth offering the customer something in return for signing up, such as a free e-book, to make it more of an incentive.
Have a subscription CTA on each page, not just on the landing page, so that the reader can subscribe at any time, no matter what page they have clicked on. And have a specific subscription landing page set up so that you can share it on social media. The easier it is for the visitor to find the subscription form, the more inclined they will be to fill it in.
Conclusion
Increasing traffic to your website doesn’t have to be expensive. And while it can take a bit of time to see proper results, it’s worth putting in the effort, as the more people that see your website, the more people that are aware of you and your business, and the more potential customers you can acquire.
Three quick tips:
- Not everyone is a writer. Record audio of yourself on your phone talking about a particular topic. Or even better, video yourself. Tools like Otter.ai and Google Transcribe will turn your voice into text for you.
- Easily write reports and key takeaways from industry conferences. Then promote that content back to attendees.
- Content production should only take about 20-3-% of your time and resources. The real value is when you promote your content.
